Vigilante
by Dabombd1g1t1
Summary: Jaune Arc always wanted to prove himself. Now, with rather odd abilities, a heart of gold and the desire to do good, he decides that being a hero is the best option for him. However, with gangs infesting the good city of Vale, psychopaths who use their abilities for evil, and something fishy going on with the governments of the world, it's a long road ahead.
1. Chapter 1

A helpful guide incase you get confused:  
"Dialogue"  
__'Thoughts'  
[Powers]__

-x-

Chapter 1 - New Kid on the Block

The night trembled with excitement. Or at least, I was trembling. Even still, the skylines of Vale had never seemed so dull when one looked at them from the same vantage point. It was as if the grey concrete drowned out the rest of the bright city when one stared at it from so high.

I briefly wondered why such a thought came over me. People had always said that looking over a city skyline whilst on top of a high building was a pleasant time.

The more my stomach disagreed with them the more I decided that I actually preferred the nice, safe and very solid ground. My current vantage point was at least one of those things.

A dirty rooftop probably designed not to be used as a quick hideout. Alas, as I took a moment to glare at the series of dislocated wrappers and mysterious stains I wondered what exactly I was doing.

__[Partial kinetic displacement. Minor momentum manipulation.]__

A brief flash of warmth several stories beneath me reminded me of why. As I felt a large piece of information flow seamlessly into my brain, vast knowledge integrating into my mind. I took a moment to hold onto the link that was created between myself and the unknowing other. There was a feeling of warmth that settled in my stomach as I reached out to a nearby ember that was definitely not sparking into full blown warmth.

__[Variable range augmented hearing. Large decibel canceling.]__

The information passed easily despite that, though. Another link was then created to someone inside the building I hid on top of. Then I felt another warmth sink into my stomach as a feeling of fullness swept over me. It wasn't crippling or discomforting, but it certainly meant that forcibly making another link was not recommended.

I tended to listen to certain recommendations.

Flexing the new information, and subsequent link, my hearing expanded down the building. I caught small glimpses of conversation and a few other things that made a healthy amount of blood flow to my face, but I could quickly calm myself now.

This was __serious__.

Taking a moment to center myself back into a sort of tranquility, I then craned my head over the edge if only by habit. I couldn't quite make out the group of figures in the constrained alleyway, but I did know they were a gang of some sort. They all wore some sort of black material and looked to be quite the rough bunch -even if that last analysis was a guess.

"...uck them, Junior's crew ain't got nothing on us! Who cares if he sends his two little whores after us?! The Black Mambaz are gonna rule this side of Vale someday!" My hearing caught up to the distance as I knew they were the ones I was after.

The Black Mambaz -yes, with that silly 'z'- if they weren't such a problem I'd laugh at the name. However, I wouldn't be here if they had a pristine track record. As such, I let the connection to my ramped up hearing go to find a more suitable link.

I had already spent my time scoping out the area, along with the various links to be made, and I found what I was looking for rather fast. Luckily, they hadn't made plans to be somewhere else at two in the morning.

__[Rechargeable Inertial cancelation. Minor micro-telekinesis.]__

Both the information and warmth settled within seconds. I heaved a sigh of excitement and nerves before leaning further off the edge. The gang was still there probably talking about something nefarious.

"Come on Jaune, you have superpowers. You got this, you're gonna be a __hero__." I breathed out once more. This was finally the time I proved myself; both to my parents and to myself. With a second more of hesitation I then pulled myself into a free fall.

I had done simulations over and over again, but actually doing it was rather terrifying. The fall from a fifteen story building would pancake someone normal on the deceptively short time it took to reach the ground. With merely a flex of the previous link, and the small assistance from the first one I hit the ground at terminal velocity with nary a groan.

The nearby gang members, though, they were flattened to the ground in a fit of displaced kinetic energy. A soft boom echoed out into the alleyway as collided with he ground, sending a wave of dust and debris into the air. Smoke and dust lingered in the air long enough for me to stand and pause at the fact that I actually just jumped off a building. That being said, it was completely reasonable for me to give a shaky breath, wondering how I broke physics so __easily__.

"Who the f-" Still, I wasted no time charging the rest of them, throwing a punch at the nearest man. He seemed to be completely caught off guard and took the blow straight to his nose. I made sure to use the small telekinesis I had to add a little more strength into it.

The gangster was sent flying a second later, his body drawing a nice curve into the air as blood leaked from his mouth and nose. There was a sort of strangled scream mixed within his flight, too. I was also quite positive that there was a tooth in the air as well, but I wasn't able to check.

Taking the time to finally observe what was happening around me, I found that I had successfully incapacitated most of the group. Some were rolling on the groud in pain, a few looked like they were knocked out cold, and the rest were spitting out the dust my improvised landing kicked up.

Then I was hit by a truck.

Well, a human shaped one in the form of the mouthy gang member. It was by sheer luck that I felt my link to him flare a little and warn me as his ability came to life, trying to crush me. I quickly countered that with the exact same one I copied first on the rooftop; which, coincidentally, was his. If I hadn't then I would've been a little more preoccupied with un-breaking my ribcage. Despite that, I still desperately gasped for breath when his charge was halted by the nearby wall.

I noted it was very well built before making the decision to displace some of the force from the impact into the wall. It was just my luck that the well built wall crumpled like some wet paper mache project, and the two of us fell into a large kitchen on the other side.

Moving on instinct as my vision swam a little, I forced a little of my telekinesis to slide me out from under him as we fell and to throw anything available at him. There was a brief sheen of light that highlighted where something hit him, but, for the most part, the man seemed only a little dazed by the sudden change in scenery.

__'Crap! What is that power?! Why didn't I sense it?!'__ I thought angrily, warily watching my opponent getting pelted by various kitchen utensils.

Whatever that greenish blue sheen that covered him was, it certainly wasn't detailed to me. The problem was that it seemed to protect him from harm, and I needed to circumvent that __fast__. Especially when I saw three other gang members pull out guns and rush into the newly minted entrance.

It was only the fact that a flash of warmth nearby alerted me to the fact that my opponent had used the ability that I pilfered from him and was able to react in time. The valiant utensils attacking him were blasted away by the force that some no doubt contained. In doing so some of my weapons turned against me, and I only was able to stop them through a liberal use of telekinesis and momentum manipulation, no matter how minor it was listed as.

The thing that surprised me the most was the few gunshots that happened at the same time, and the bullets that had halted mid flight as well. In fact, the others were as stunned as I was and blinked widely as the bullets hung in the air placidly.

It turned out minor meant I could stop bullets if I tried hard enough.

"Huh, go figure..." I muttered weakly to the echoing silence.

"The hell're you? You sent by Junior's? Or is it the Union? Maybe ... the Reds?" The man who had tackled me through the wall spat. Though he was a little unsure about that last group.

I paused, gauging the man for a second then answered, "Do... Do you really think it's a good idea to stick around if you're wanted by so many other gangs?"

"Shut the hell up! I ain't gonna sit here and listen to some costumed Huntsman wannabe talk shit!" He screamed back to my polite words.

"Right... so," I held the word, feeling much better now that I regained my breath from being rammed into a wall, "back to fighting?"

The man happily replied with a garbled battle cry while the other three brought up their weapons. Now that I had the confidence to block the bullets, I simply let them shoot and reached out with my two links. The spiraling pieces of metal halted inside their own barrels this time. I winced as the second shot caused their guns to explode in sending them all to the ground, clutching their badly mangled hands.

However, my luxury of sympathy was cut short as the last, and greatest, threat appeared in front of me not even sparing a glance at his wounded friends. If there was any indication he cared, I saw none, and I barely had time to leap out of the way of his strike with all the grace of a floundering fish.

My decision turned out to be the best choice as a the metal stove his fist collided with burst apart. A screeching whine came as gas spewed forth from a valve that had burst. Pieces of scrap flew into the air as I pulled on some of the smaller ones and shot them at him in an act of partial desperation. The same protective sheen prevented the pieces from doing any damage.

It was around this time that I began to worry about the closing warmth from the building we were in. Several other sources of warmth were also rapidly gathering nearby, and I nearly blanked out by the sheer information that was assaulting my brain. I didn't have time to catalog, or make note of any useful ones for that matter. However, I quickly switched out my very first link with one that caught my eye.

A plan quickly formed in my head.

No sooner than I brought it together, a fist barreled into my face as I was forced to fling myself back to only gather a broken nose from the exchange. Pain lit up the side of my face as the eye closest to the punch was now leaking tears, blurring my sight further. I whimpered in part agony part regret at realizing I was way in over my head to back out now. Blood trickled down my face as I felt like my nose had just been sentenced to death by sledgehammer.

"Not so funny now ain't cha, bitch!" The man mocked, stalking towards my prone figure by the kitchen entrance.

"If you're still standing once this is over, you can laugh some more." I wheezed before my other link flared to life.

__[Spark flint adaptation. Automatic heat shield.]__

Information poured into my brain as I instinctively snapped. An innocent spark leapt from my fingertips, and the room filled with gas blazed into a sudden, roaring inferno. Tongues of red hot snarled out into the darkness of night as the small kitchen we had dueled in was doused in fiery fury.

I threw both my inertial cancellation and telekinesis to protect myself from the force of the explosion while the heat barely felt like anything. Through the cries of the flames I felt like I heard someone screaming, but I decided to not put it to mind. The man had that weird shield thingy while the three goons were outside and would probably sustain only burns.

When the worst of the fire died down I was finally able to look at the devastation I had knowingly caused. The room was pitched in black soot while some of the metal appliances near the hotter parts of it looked to be somewhat sagging. Rancid smoke billowed about making the room much more difficult to perceive to everyone as well as choking up a few airways. Luckily, my guesses towards the states of the gang members outside was right on the money. Even if they were screaming much more quietly.

Wait, why does everything sound so far away?

I began to realize that it was my hearing that was the problem when I could make out frantic cursing nearby. Though only barely. And sadly that cursing meant the supposed leader was still better than I currently was.

"...ou...uck...ghill...goo!" He said incoherently, and, at this point, I felt like he was doing that on purpose.

The man had definitely seen better days as his clothes looked to be melted to his skin except for a large patch of blackened flesh that ran from his chest and across his face. He looked like he was on his last legs too as he tried to wobble over to me like a rage induced penguin. I nearly laughed at the similarities, but, considering I was even more exhausted and beat, a small primal fear graced me.

Was I really in over my head? I just wanted to be a hero. Is this really how I'll go? To a small time gangster in the midst of a burning wreckage?

A small trace of defiance rose up within me as I searched through the nearby spots of warmth with a new fervor. The wounded man was already on me by the time I had cycled through several other possibilities, and the blind kick he sent my way crashed painfully into my sore ribs he had already tackled. There was a loud crack that followed my muffled scream, and I knew something was definitely broken now.

I was sent tumbling towards one of the blackened kitchen walls before colliding with a sick thud. Smoke parted with my passing, carving a human shaped hole through the growing obstructive cloud. Luckily, I was able to switch back to the man's ability to displace force and only took a portion of the punishment.

Coughing up a mouthful of blood, black smoke and probably bile, I leaned dangerously on a ruined countertop. The man continued to maniacally scream and wobble over to me, but I was too tired to even listen to him.

I was already in this to win. I didn't need his insane mumbles to distract me.

It was then that I felt a common trace of warmth nearby with a even more tantalizing piece of information that I linked up with immediately.

__[Semi-physical glass-based illusions. Illusion oriented spacial awareness.]__

I put an illusion that would fool the delirious man while quickly shuffling away as fast as my bruised body would take me. I sent him on a wild goose chase towards the nearest traces of warmth. Hopefully the large group of warmer signatures was the police.

Broken, but not down for the count, I stumbled back towards my home with new knowledge, bruises and an illusion to hopefully look better than I currently felt.

-x-

Inside a large warehouse sat a well dressed man idly twirling his cane. His hat rested in the other as his fringe of bright orange hair grabbed the attention of any who dared to look. The annoyed frown on his face spoke volumes for his current mood.

Let it be know that Roman Torchwick wasn't a man who liked to wait. However, the fact that he so stubbornly waited inside a dusty old warehouse was testament to the necessity of such an action. Though, that didn't make it any better when a small curvaceous figure finally slammed open the warehouse doors.

"Neo! Did that group of worthless wannabes really hold you up that long?" He asked as a diminutive woman pranced into the warehouse like she owned it.

However, instead of answering the girl shook her head causing the locks of pink and brown to shake back and forth. Her mismatched eyes of the same colors glinted ominously in the light of the warehouse so much so that the man hopped off his temporary chair and got ready for anything.

Seeing this, Neo glared at him before motioning something. Roman walked over staring down at the woman who barely reached his stomach before clearing his throat.

"So let me get this straight," he paused, unsure of what Neo signed again, and he only continued when she repeated her action by typing into a scroll. "Some weirdo with a mask literally dropped down from a building and took out everyone? Seriously Neo, what are you putting in your ice cream nowadays?"

Neo swung a frilly umbrella at him that he hurriedly dodged.

"Hey! I need this face for a meeting later; Junior is paying you for disposing those nuisances from his turf and I'm gonna squeeze a few favors. So who's this hero? He do your job for you?"

Neo gave a silent pout as if that showed her entire displeasure. Then she appeared to be the most embarrassed as Roman had ever seen her. Not waiting for an answer anymore, he immediately turned to look out the window to watch as the world exploded.

When neither the world ended or Neo ended him, he turned back to his diminutive friend holding a message already typed out on her scroll. The illuminated glass shone with damning bold letters that Roman would probably carry to his grave. If Neo was embarrassed, no one needed to know about it; that was just asking to be put on Vale's permanently diving club.

"You __lost __him... after he __survived __a two story gas explosion..." Roman took the new information with all the seriousness as a police crackdown. Which was a little on the scale of damn serious. With a healthy mix of odd amusement.

On one hand he was thrilled to see his resident psychopath so embarrassed and confused. On the other hand he was terrified about what she would do in response.

Finally, he decided to open his mouth, "It looks like we have a new kid on the block then."

Neo swung her umbrella with the intent to kill this time.

-x-

_This is a fairly old chapter I wrote awhile ago, and decided to post it here. This idea had been floating in my head after I _was inspired by this wonderful piece of Worm Fanfic called Trump Card . Of course, I have a somewhat solid outline for this, but my update schedule is pretty sporadic. I'm trying to be consistent, though.

Now, I felt that this sort of power suited Jaune quite well as his Semblance is all about enhancing Aura. Sure, it can be great by itself, but he needs other people to use it one more often than not.

Also, a few things that I should say now, this power is not Jaune's Semblance. It's also not Space Whale parasites, either. I'm keeping this in the same universe as RWBY with sort of upgraded Semblances, but probably not at the level of The Games We Play. Jaune's "Superpower" will be explained later, however, if you can guess it now, then... actually, if you can guess it now, I'll call hacks as well as call the cops for having someone read my mind. (Can you call the cops for that? (I feel they get weird calls now and then...))

As always, Enjoy!


	2. Chapter 2

A helpful guide incase you get confused:  
"Dialogue"  
_'Thoughts'  
[Powers]_

-x-

Chapter 2 - Settling In

My door creaked open, protesting as I pushed my weight onto it's handle and swinging it inwards. I was greeted with the sight of my temporary enclosure: a small living room that connected to both my bedroom and bathroom at the same time. A small couch took up the majority of my living room with the rest being occupied by my television and only a small amount of space to move around.

I liked to keep everything tidy for my small cot, and it showed as my newspapers and letters were organized on the counter that contained what was my little kitchen. Most importantly, the clean smell of my apartment clued me in on the fact that I had been refusing to admit until now.

I _stunk_.

Apparently getting into a massive brawl with someone who could use superpowers, and tanking a larger than average gas explosion was cause for smelly concern. I decided to write that down for future notice. Future-me must stock up on deodorant next time I went to the store.

Slowly, I shambled my way through my small apartment, taking care to lock the door behind me. I reached my even smaller bathroom a couple seconds later, rejoicing in the small blessing that is a bath of hot water. It was with great pain, and lack of adrenaline, that I realized just how damaged I was.

Several blackened bruises dotted my sides with the added bonus of a split lip and a large black eye that had just begun to swell up. My sides burned with every breath, and I was assured that I had only broken one or two ribs. There was also a couple of places where my clothes had decided that my skin was the perfect place to melt onto.

All in all, I looked like I belonged on the front page of a gang violence pamphlet. The funny part would be that they wouldn't be too far off the point.

"Sss... ow, ow, _ow_..." I moaned, struggling in my porcelain lounge. A link nearby whispered honeyed words my battered body wanted to hear as I felt a familiar warmth sink into his stomach.

_[Liquid contact based accelerated healing. Minor micro-hydrokinesis.]_

I shook my head at the rather useless second ability. Intuitively, I knew that I could barely shift the water in my tub, but I could achieve the same effect with my arms. Secondary skill or not, the first one worked wonders on my... well, _everything_. The added benefit of realizing that I could create small bubbles of water to land on my face was only the icing on the cake.

I really was beaten black and blue. And I never really knew how much of an odd feeling it was to have your ribs rightened into place. Not one I'd like to experience repeatedly that's for sure. Though, something was telling me that the universe cared not for what I thought.

"That could've gone better..." I mumbled to myself.

My first night of supposed heroism had nearly backfired, and even then I still caused enough collateral damage to put whatever good I had done to shame. Though, I hardly cared about that in the heat of the moment.

I was too reckless and confident in my abilities. I knew what powers I took like the back of my hand, but that didn't translate to using them to the best of their traits. And that almost cost me.

Bringing myself out of my stupor with a heavy sigh and a addled mind, I rose out of my healing bath, letting go of my link in the process, and left for my bedroom. With a few winces of pain and well meant limps I struggled into my bed.

_Then _my scroll rang on the nightstand beside my head.

Glaring vehemently at the piece of technology that vibrated to a not so catchy ringtone, I took it into my hand. Looking at the time, I balked as it was already six in the morning, and then I paled as I found I had several missed calls from my mom.

Hurriedly, I took the scroll into my hands, taking a breath to calm my nerves. Then I paused right before I pressed the accept call button. Reflected back at me was my face that still had traces of a black eye, and a few bruises.

I spread out my ability to sense powers, and combed through any of the ones nearby, looking for something to get me out of my predicament. By luck, I found one that would help, and felt the warmth settle into me.

_[Variable distraction-based focal points. Increased cosmetic affinity.] _

I immediately put a few tips of makeup to use that had unknowingly come to mind. I felt a little awkward at having makeup in my home, but knowing my sisters, they'd probably forget theirs if they ever decided to come by unannounced. Even still, I never expected to use the backups for myself.

"Jaune Arc, you _better _have a good enough reason for ignoring all of my earlier calls!" It wasn't even seconds after I finally accepted the call that a tone of righteous feminine fury descended from the other side.

"Sorry mom, I was... in the bath." I stumbled slightly.

"You were in the bath? For five hours?" She said, voice chilling to a vicious calm that sent shivers down my spine.

"I mean, I happened to be... um, out of my apartment at the time. Uh, getting groceries... Just recently, I was... in the bath." I reasoned while a brief flex of my recently pilfered ability let me apply it to speech. I shoved as much effort into distraction that I could, hoping for a miracle.

My distraction might've worked or might've failed horribly, but either way a sigh graced my speaker as my mom continued, "Jaune, I realize that you wanted to try and live in the city, but I want you to be careful. You're only sixteen and I hear how dangerous some parts of Vale can get."

"I get it mom," I said, remembering my night so far, "I _really _do. I try to keep my head down," then I felt the power I took activate a little. _Distract_. Pull attention elsewhere. "Just yesterday a place nearby I worked was attacked, so I kinda get what you mean. Don't worry, though! No one was harmed; just the owner was a little scared."

"Did they happen to be a Faunus?" Mom asked as I felt the notion to hide a smirk. Distraction success.

"Uh, yes? How'd you know?"

Another sigh came, this time a little more tired and resigned. "Well, now that you're not in Ansel anymore I guess it's more prevalent. You need to be careful about anti-Faunus sentiment; most of them are just angry from the war a couple years ago, and need something to blame. The increased violence by the White Fang don't really help..."

"But that doesn't give them the right to abuse others!" I stated, feeling a bit of steel enter my voice.

"No, it does not." Mom agreed easily. Then I could feel her tone soften, the tension of our previous conversation falling away. She too was trying to distract, my power said. It was odd that distractions from others counted as viable points that I could use. "By the way, your father and I want to see you soon. We're thinking of bringing the twins, and I think Sienna comes back from Atlas Academy in maybe two or three weeks. She said something about a new job. Do you think you have time then?"

I smiled. "Yeah, I wouldn't miss you guys for the world."

"Good, we'll look forward to seeing you again. Be safe and stay out of trouble; we love you, Jaune." With that the call ended and I was left in my silent bedroom.

I stared at my scroll with a mix of emotions on my face as I stood to get the makeup off my face. My floor creaked with my limping, but I was slowly getting better at hiding it. I decided to try and heal a little more in my bath, considering the time, and take off the makeup.

I only paused when I stared at my black eye in the mirror. My lips pursed before I found something I needed to say, "Sorry mom."

-x-

The monorail beneath me rumbled along as it sped above the city. Concrete buildings passed underneath, and I stared at the people who meandered on to and fro. They all _seemed _happy. They all had little worries for what had occurred last night.

In most aspects, I expected a little more from my deeds. Maybe not crowds parading around proclaiming a new hero in town, but maybe a little more recognition. Sure, my struggle was played on the news, yet my part wasn't ever announced. In fact, I was now a suspect in the murder of twenty two known gangsters.

Another thing that set my teeth on edge. Sometime after I had left someone had decided to finish whatever I started. Finish all of them permanently, in fact. I honestly had no idea what to feel about that.

_'Do I mourn?' _I thought._'They were definitely nasty people, but do they deserve death for that?'_ I couldn't feasibly reply to my moral quandary as the whole situation was a blur to me.

Thinking over it, I should be glad that there is no mention of me. Getting involved first was definitely my fault; the fact that they died was not. Now that I think about it, was it one of the gangs that were after them? I should probably look into the ones who that leader guy mentioned. It would definitely let me cope better with the situation.

Sighing one more time at the conundrum I found myself in, I stepped out of the monorail when it arrived at my stop. The whole thing was getting to me. I wanted to become a hero because it was the right thing to do, _not _to get recognition. Settling into that frame of mind I picked up my pace.

Downtown Vale was perhaps the least populated, building wise. Colorful bricks laid in vivid displays were used simply as ornate walkways. Sides were lined with Forever Fall's beautiful red leaved trees mixed in with emerald trees in cleanly trimmed shrubs. Shops and vendors happily sold to the visitors and residents alike that ambled about in the nice shade.

I smiled and waved to some of the vendors I knew while making my way down the pretty bricks. It was a calming and cheerful atmosphere that juxtaposed my last night. Still, I let myself get caught up in my surroundings, and ignored the information that was trickling into my mind from multiple nearby sources.

Oddly enough, there was less sources of warmth nearby. Mainly just dull warmths, meaning none were in use. I had no idea if it had to do with the area, but I made sure to make note of anyone who could be a problem.

By the time I arrived to my place of work I found my manager already manning the cart. It was a pleasantly styled, wooden ice cream cart with two white spoked wheels. The whole thing was painted an obscene white with images of random food items emboldened along the edges of it. A frilly umbrella hung over the main chassis of the cart while several tubs of ice cream was presented to the world.

An elderly man stood with a welcoming smile as he tried to draw in those walking by. His wispy grey hairs were smothered by a white chef hat that adorned his head. Wrinkly, liver-spotted skin hung to face as his startling clear blues stared out from their slightly sunken recesses.

"Good morning, Mr. Greengram. I can take over now if you want?" I said, watching as his eyes trailed to me and a smile splayed out on his face.

He didn't say anything and just took off the apron on his torso before handing it to me. His hat followed and so too did a pair of white gloves on his hands. After I had put on everything and taken up his position behind the vendor cart, my manager smiled and patted my shoulder.

I knew he spoke. He had done so when he hired me, but I realized he seldom spoke much unless you were a customer. If anything he was a happy, old man that agreed to hire me despite my age and inexperience. That _had _to be worth something at least.

Though, if I was to be completely honest, I didn't really need a job; my parents were paying for my apartment and sent money often enough for me to live comfortably. At first, I just wanted to find a place where I could cycle through as many nearby powers as possible; to familiarize myself with the more powerful ones. Of course, Downtown Vale was out of the question when I compared it to the shadier parts of the city, but I felt the need to help the old ice cream vendor. It also helped that I wanted to be a little independent of my parent's money.

In a way, I felt needed

"Do you have any standard Valian flavors?" A deep voice rang out in front of me, and I felt the information enter my head before I turned to look at them. On instinct, I linked to the ability presented to me as the warmth that radiated to my senses alerted me that they were currently using it.

_[Tactile gravitational manipulation. Biologically augmented internal gravity.]_

I eased as the information came; his was one of those passive ones that were always active. Still, I tensed a little as I looked up, and up, _and up_. The man in front of me was a giant that stood a head or two above my own impressive height. His tan skin, bulging muscles and sleeveless green shirt were definitely not helping the dangerous image I painted for him.

"Uh, I'm sorry, I have no idea what flavors would be Valian." I craned my head to look up at the man's face only to find his features a little less mature than I would've expected. Innocent for a word; with a short crop of brown hair and black eyes. An easing smile on his face said he had probably seen me tense up at his size.

I hurriedly pulled further on link to his warmth, and I felt the changes of his ability take place to ease my unconscious tension due to his size. My body shifted as internal changes took place in seconds. Instantly, I felt lighter, but, if I willed it, I could increase the gravity the was exerted on my muscles. I realized that this was probably what led to that insane physique. In fact, I decided to train a little too with his useful ability.

"I might not be able to know what a staple Valian flavor is, but I recommend the rocky road." I smiled as I regained some sense of confidence. My body was still sore from last night, yet the increased gravity training made me feel a pleasant burn.

"I'll take a sample of that then." The larger man said. "Pardon me for asking -you look my age, but do you know where I might find where to apply for Beacon? I've been looking for them for a couple hours now, and have realized that Vale is very different from Mistral."

"That's understandable, I've been in Vale for only a couple of weeks, and still barely know my way around. I think that Beacon's got an office somewhere in the Eastern parts of Vale." I said automatically, getting a sample my recommendation for him.

I blinked as some information he had said fully hit me. I couldn't help but blurt, "You're my age?"

"Hmm? Yes, you're seventeen too, right? This is pretty good; I'll take two scoops." The teen answered while pointing to the cleaned spoon. His words made me pause for a little bit.

"Huh? Yes, of course." I shook into motion. "Cup or cone?"

"Cup please."

Getting his order ready, I felt like I missed something obvious. I turned back to him the words at the tip of my tongue, "You're seventeen?!"

"Uh, yeah, I'm Yatsuhashi Daichi, or is it Daichi Yatsuhashi here? Just call me Yatsuhashi if you're confused. I'm still getting used to Vale culture." The giant teen replied easily. His face held no sign that he was offended by my comment. Maybe he was used to the reaction already?

"I'm sorry," I replied quickly. "I just had a rough night, and was kinda startled by you. Um, no offense... ah, my name is Jaune Arc, by the way! Or, err, Arc... Jaune? In Mistralian?"

The larger teen chuckled a bit at my attempt to ease the mood. His size still uneased me, but I didn't think he's that bad.

"So, who were you sparing with?" Yatsuhashi suddenly asked as he took the offered ice cream, and passed me the required Lien.

"What?" I sputtered.

Yatsuhashi chuckled a bit. "I'm just saying whoever you spared with definitely didn't hold back. You're favoring your left hand when you're right handed, too. So, rough night?"

"Yeah, don't think I'll be doing that _anytime _soon..." I awkwardly rubbed the back if my head. Was I that obvious? "Anyways, why do you ask?"

"Oh, I didn't mean to be rude, but I wouldn't mind a sparing partner, too. Beacon's a ways away from home. You're honestly the first person I've talked to."

I blushed at his admittance. "Oh that's... thank you? But I'm not really signing for Beacon this year; I'm only sixteen."

Yatsuhashi blinked. "Really? You seem pretty strong. I'm sure you'll make it in now if you try."

"Well..." I drew the word out then leaned in conspiratorially. "My parents don't really _want _me to be a Huntsman, but when I turn seventeen I can sign my own papers."

"You should get permission from your parents, at least." The giant frowned, brows furrowed together. "Though, I guess I have no reason to judge you. Do you mind showing me the way to Beacon's recruitment office; when you're free to do so."

"Yeah, I don't mind. I get off for lunch in about two hours if you can wait."

Yatsuhashi nodded and proceeded to sit down a ways away from the cart. I wondered why he did so until I saw some children, who looked apprehensive, approach happily after he left. Holding back a slight grimace, I served everyone who came while thinking that, despite his size, Yatsuhashi was definitely a good guy.

-x-

For as long as I knew it, I've always had the power to sense others who contained the odd warmth that signified powers. It didn't seem too weird when I was little; I thought everyone could do it. My mom, dad, and two eldest sisters had powers. They never showed them, but I still knew.

The thing that always annoyed me was the fact that they didn't use them. They had powers to help, to fight against evil, but they chose to instead stagnate. I love them. I always will; however, I don't accept their decision as right.

I realized last night that maybe their decision to stay put and do nothing could be due to how dangerous other people are. That maybe my power didn't really show me everything that that person could do; just everything their power did. My solution, while simple, was to even the playing field with one thing that Huntsmen were known for other than killing Grimm: weapons.

At first, I thought that maybe using weapons on some unsuspecting gangster was a little overkill when I could use virtually every superpower around me. I guess it was a little arrogant of me to also walk into the middle of a fight with only my thin clothes too. In my defense, it was my first night.

Which is now why I am visiting a weapons shop in the near my place after I had dropped off Yatsuhashi. For some reason he had insisted that we trade Scroll numbers, and I found myself with my first friend from Vale. Well, Mistral, but he's living in Vale now, so it counts.

Anyways, back to the weapons. I found the place to be rather boring when I first came in, but the dull concrete walls were growing on me. Or I was having to watch them in favor of trying to aim the high caliber pistol in my hand that looked halfway between a steel brick and a slot machine.

The thing took me a couple of minutes to find out how to even load it, and the owner certainly didn't help when he explained only how to remove the safety. In the end, I had to rely on a nearby power to speed up my understanding of the gun's inner workings.

The result was my hands being blasted back by the sheer force of the kickback, the gun's barrel slamming into my nose a second later. There was a crack and I realized that I had bloodied my nose and my lip was split. _Again_.

Luckily, the blood stopped faster this time, and I had to only clean a little of the substance off my jacket and pants. I had plenty of practice doing that last night. It was also rather easy to stop my bloody nose with only a small snort of blood and a couple dabs with my shirt.

_'Wow, that was really metal...'_ I mused to myself, reflecting that scene in my head. Other than the fact that I totally failed at firing the pistol, my recovery should be in books for how awesome I was.

The uproarious laughter that echoed out from behind me said otherwise, and I was forced to blink the tears out of my eyes to find the perpetrator to be the man who had let me try out weapons.

A man who looked to be in his late forties was lounging next to the entrance to the range. A shock of wavy, dark brown hair adorned the top of his sharp features. Two brown eyes laughed at me from the place next to the door. There wasn't that many identifying features that set him apart from normal citizens, but, somehow, I felt a little apprehensive.

He was a well built guy, corded muscles stacked beneath a nice, buttoned down shirt. Plain, grey slacks hung loosely on his legs that led to a pair of expensive, leather shoes. They even clicked oddly against the floor in a way that told me there was some metal in there.

"You're holding that all wrong, kid." The man grinned after finishing his laugh, pristine, white teeth flashed towards me. "You gotta square your shoulders more, and brace your shooting arm."

I blinked, not expecting the advice, but complied anyways. When I shot this time the gun didn't buck as much as it did, and I was able to actually aim the weapon. Well, aiming was an overestimation of what I was doing. Shooting in the general direction, more like.

It was a step ahead, but it still didn't get to the level I wanted. I was having trouble hitting the target, and I couldn't really see myself getting better anytime soon. The warmth that I currently had was also telling me this.

Frowning, I realized that the man was still behind me. And that his piece of warmth was in use. Immediately, I reached out to connect to it.

_[Weapon based omniscience. Intent-oriented short-term multi-path precognition.] _

As the information of the power locked into my head I tried not to let shock show on my face. There were so many things that had suddenly been shoved in my brain that it was hard to focus on my surroundings. The weapon based omniscience was telling me everything about the gun in my hand, and exactly how to hold it. However, the minor precognition was showing that it would be a bad idea to change my posture suddenly.

The man also shifted oddly with my change, and I knew that his ability was putting something into his head. It wasn't helping that I was also reacting to his reactions. Both of our respective precognitions were saying different things, and it was messing up our predictions.

"Uh, thanks for the… help." I said holding my gun up, trying to diffuse the situation.

"Ah, right," he answered lamely, all signs of future aggression disappearing. It was rather weird that most of the paths to him attacking me was not moving my gun. "No offence though, kid, I don't think a gun fits you. Maybe a knife or sword? You look like the type for classics."

The warmth I copied from him was telling me something similar, _but _I could probably hit something with this power now, if I tried hard enough. Without it, though, I would need something else. "What would you recommend?"

"Well, kid," the man started, motioning for me to follow out of the range. "Rouge's Weapons should have what you're looking for. You seem like a sword guy, right?"

Hesitantly, I nodded. "Yeah, I practiced with my dad and sisters."

"Really? You going to Beacon, then?" He asked, falling in between the racks of weapons. His hands deftly passed by a couple of weapons, and I flinched as my precognition told me that he would cut me in half if I tried anything other than walking three steps behind him to his right.

We walked all the way to a counter in the back of the store, out of prying eyes. He shifted around minutely, and my precognition found nothing wrong in the action, but I still warily watched him. If my last night had taught me anything, then it was to be ready at all times.

When I neither attacked or ran, he smoothly moved behind the counter. He brought out a large box that held cards of lien, and blinked at me, expecting a response from the earlier question.

"I, uh, am taking an off year before I do." I lied easily after thinking over what to say. "Wanted to get a feel for Vale before I attended, you know?"

The brown haired man smiled knowingly. "I hear you." He then proceeded to grab a sword from behind a counter and hold it up. "How about this one? It's a rather hearty blade."

I reached out for his recommendation, both with his power and my hand. The sword itself was long. A straight, double edged blade that looked like a it was a couple centimeters thick was laid in my hands. The tapered edges were sharp, and running a finger along the tip made me understand how dangerous it was. I was bleeding _everywhere _today.

Whatever metal it was made of, my power seemed to like it very much, and I had to stop myself from drooling at the fact that it apparently could switch from blunted to serrated and back to a straight edge easily. The straight edge was just the default form. A simple twist of the hilt would allow it to move between forms like a machine.

It felt light, too. Despite the clear weight of the blade, and the handle being a little bulky, having a rounded guard of solid brown metal that sloped onto the blade with a strip of shiny silver in the middle of it, the sword was startlingly weightless. At first I wondered why the grip looked solid, but a quick grasp of my weapon omniscience told me that it had a memory material tied into it that molded into the hand that held it, preventing unnecessary slippage. A triangular pommel of silver adorned the end of the hilt with a rounded off point.

My pilfered power was telling me that it was also _well _out of any amount that I could offer.

"Ah, sorry," I apologized sheepishly. "This might be a little out of my price range…"

My precognition didn't alert me of anything nefarious as he began to smile like he understood everything. "Don't worry, it's a piece of junk to anyone who didn't understand it, anyways. You can always sell it back to me if you can't get it right." He held up three fingers, leaning on the counter and tapping the box of lien. "Three hundred lien for the sword and I'll throw in the pistol that broke your nose for another seventy. Hundred rounds of ammo, on the house."

"That's…" The price was missing a zero or two, I wanted to say. And I was beginning to have different thoughts of why I decided to leave my family's weapon at home. Though, the sword was very nice. Nice enough for me to ignore most of the futures I was watching with the precognition. "Could I ask for a discount?"

The man looked at me, not sure if I had made a joke or was completely serious. Slowly, ever so slowly, he shook his head in denial. "No… why would you even- you know what, kid, never mind. That was a horrible joke, by the way." He shook his head again. "Just think of it like a incentive to come back to buy ammo or repairs whenever you need. I also wouldn't mind if you came in regularly for shooting practice with paid lessons because, let's face it, your aim sucks."

I grimaced at the blunt acknowledgement of my poor skills. It stung a little bit, but I was used to the feeling. "That… makes sense." I reached into my jacket pockets and found my wallet, gripping the plastic cards of lien and handing it to him. "Do I need to sign anywhere, or am I good?"

"Nah, you're good, kid." The man paused for a second, eyeing the gun that was now mine. "Though, I think I should do a tune up on that pistol's rifling. It was due for another inspection soon, so I should get that out of the way before you take it."

My face was level as the information flowing into my head found nothing wrong with my pistol's rifling. In fact, all the signs that I got from his own power pointed that the pistol was completely new, and had never been used till today. So either he was lying or my power had missed something.

Still, I wasn't going to call him out on his lie, and it wasn't like the pistol would really be useful to me just yet. I handed the weapon over without a complaint. If it was tampered with, then I could maybe fix it if I held onto his link long enough to attempt to do so.

The man took my new pistol out behind another door, and I had to wait a couple of minutes for him to finish. In the meantime, I shuffled through the nearby powers absently, making sure that I had one spot dedicated to the brown-haired man's rather potent one. He definitely had the strongest ability I had seen as of yet.

While trying to put a figure on the man who I was buying weapons from, I stumbled across a rather familiar nearby power. Glass based illusions were fed into my mind, and I immediately locked onto the link.

_[Semi-physical glass-based illusions. Illusion oriented spacial awareness.]_

I had remembered it was the one that had saved me last night. It was also the one that was closest to those gangsters whenever I had left. The gangsters that were all announced dead in a small section of the news. They were killed, and _someone _had gotten away clean when there were definitely others nearby.

I am not the smartest around, but I can put two and two together. This power was very adept in escape as well as assassination, in the right hands. I wasn't healed yet, but I would definitely tail them to try and understand more of what happened last night.

Luckily, the man who had my gun had just come out just in time as the illusion user was getting a little too far from my immediate range. I had tested the range of my ability, and apparently I could sense warmths easier the closer they were. If they were in use then that range expanded.

Roughly one kilometer was my normal range. My senses would taper off towards the end, and it would be hard to pinpoint things the farther they got. It would double if their own ability was in use as the warmth would show up brighter in my own senses, and, lucky for me, they had theirs in use. However, they were rapidly leaving my enhanced range to do who knows what.

"Here you go, kid." The man said genially. "If you're ever looking for something in the shop just call for Will Rouge."

My mind was elsewhere as I responded. "Yeah, my name's Jaune Arc, nice to meet you. Bye!"

I was gone before the man could mutter another word, following a killer of not really innocent men. However, what kind of hero would I be if I let some murderer run rampant in the good streets of Vale.

My sore body _moved _with the intent of bringing justice.

-x-

_Welp, second chapter posted. I just wanna make it clear now that this is an AU, and since I wrote this long before learning CVFY's semblances, that's one point. Of course, while I'll try to keep it close to the physics of the original, canon can be thrown out the window. Anyways, hopefully this will be enjoyable for y'all to read._

_As always, Enjoy!_


	3. Chapter 3

_So, apparently I forgot to make a disclaimer that I do not own RWBY or anything related to it. Anyways, because I don't want the slight chance of this backfiring on me..._

**_Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY or anything related to it._**

A helpful guide incase you get confused:  
"Dialogue"  
_'Thoughts'  
[Powers]_

-x-

Chapter 3 - Sneak Missions Are the Worst

After passing the fifth block, I realized that maybe following some unknown assassin _probably _wasn't the best idea. It sounded like a good one in the heat of the moment, but now it was beginning to seem a little odd.

I mean, if my target wasn't covered in an illusion to make them seem like a normal, middle aged man, I probably would have had the cops on me like rapier wasps on sugary sap.

One good thing that has come out if it so far was the fact that the ability I am copying from them allowed me to be aware of everything in an illusion. Well, only glass based ones like the one my target was using, for instance. And only at a certain distance...

Conversely, this meant that if I put up an illusion when I was close enough, I would expect a rather troublesome opponent. My now gone precognition had told me just how fast my opponent reacted to me suddenly appearing in a similar illusion. And that their umbrella had a very sharp hidden blade in the handle.

Call me a coward, but me and sharp objects don't mix well.

Through their own illusion, I saw that they were rather tiny in stature. At first I thought they were a child, but their curvaceous figure set that thought on complete lockdown. She put some of my more active sisters to shame.

Her color scheme reminded me of neapolitan ice cream. Chocolate brown hair flowed from one side of her head to her lower back while the other half was taken by strawberry and flecks of vanilla. Even her eyes were split in color, one taking to her brown hair and the other following the pink. Skin as white as priceless porcelain blended in her smooth features, but her doll-like appearance was broken by a vicious smirk that was only hidden by the illusion she wore.

Her clothing followed along with her ice cream colors. A white jacket with hints of pink held up her formidable bust, and spilled out from her back in a longer coattail. A corset of chocolate chip hung tight to her stomach and sensually -even if I was the only one watching- showed off her hips as she sashayed down the road. A pair of skintight, brown pants trailed down her legs to a set of black laced, white boots that rose up from her feet to her knees. I didn't want to comment about the fact that the heels on those boots were definitely adding tens of centimeters to her demure height.

A filly umbrella innocently swung in her arms, but I already knew better. From the curved handle there was a hidden blade that was a thin as a folded piece of paper. The filly umbrella itself was also some kind of alloy composite that could apparently withstand fifty caliber bullets point blank.

So now this just brings me back to the fact that I'm following a small girl. Or just a really short woman. Either way, it's frowned upon in equal amounts if I made myself noticeable.

In the end, I was just lucky that she was moving under an illusion, and that I could follow her from several hundred meters away. I hadn't thought that my ability to sense warmths would have such a tracking feature. However, I guess I was just trying to avoid fighting others with powers just yet.

Something that I was severely failing at if I thought of last night.

Though I could hardly play my inability to properly judge threats now. If anything, the fight last night taught me quite a bit of things, and one of those was the fact that information was probably my best friend at the moment. I wasn't going to get into a fight with this diminutive assassin just yet. Not without knowing exactly what I was up against.

However, as we kept going further and further to the eastern parts of Vale, I began to grow apprehensive. The city of Vale, in my eyes, was broken up into five different parts based on the proximity to the mainland.

North and west were normally richer. Having mansions and beautiful parks that dotted the suburbs between stretches of cityscape. They were understandably closer to the shipping ports of the city, and held onto the rich business in the area. It was the more reasonably safer areas of Vale as it was much closer to Beacon's campus as well. In fact, Rouge's Weapons was even there to spurn more Huntsmen and women in the area.

The center portion of Vale reminded me a bit of an art exhibit. Beautiful pieces of vegetation with little concrete jungle in between. Police monitored in in regular intervals, and always showed a smile to the happy citizens that walked down its colorful streets. They really enforced the idea that the city of Vale was peaceful and safe there. I always enjoyed the calming atmosphere that the center of Vale brought.

The eastern side of Vale, on the other hand, had quite a bit of undesirable areas, and was exactly where I had found myself just yesterday. It was closer to the mountains that bordered the southeastern parts of the region. And there was only the areas around the Beacon office in the east to ever call a nice place to be in the east.

As one went further south the places got worse as well, but it was more along the lines of bars and other rather gangster-like feeling of the people who walked down the streets. I had heard that there were loan sharks that prowled the areas as well. However, I only knew that the areas only started to decline after some failed settlement was discarded, and the people who had been trying to live there were relocated back to Vale.

All of that wasn't the cause for concern, however, it was the fact that I found myself a little ways outside a rundown part of the southeastern part of Vale. A seemingly abandoned warehouse stretched out in front of me, and my target confidently strode into the place, slamming the doors where she went. Her illusion broke down around her in shards of semi-physical glass that disappeared after a couple of seconds, and I was left blind to whatever was happening.

All I knew was the fact that she was still within the warehouse, and that there was another four sources of warmth nearby. I hesitantly read through their abilities as I began to carefully make my way to a building across from them. Information flowed into my brain as I linked to one of their warmths, pooling power into my gut.

_[Single-target parasitic perception. Activatable shared perception.]_

The best thing about this new power was the fact that I could now see of someone else's eyes and hear from their ears. All I had to do was know who I wanted to link up with, and it would do the rest. With that said, I watched from discolored eyes and listened from small ears to the five who were none the wiser.

"...wasn't in the deal, Roman." I watched as the diminutive girl's eyes trailed around the room without pause. She wasn't actually paying attention to anything, but I got the impression that the other four in the room.

I got the fact that there were two girls flanking a rather large man, but her aggravating attention span was quickly flipping elsewhere. She paused long enough that I got the impression that the large man had black hair, and his tag-alongs were in red and white dresses. The other one was man in a tailored suit with orange hair.

Then her eyes closed, shutting me into the dark, and I was partly afraid that she had found me out. However, calm breathing and a feeling of relaxation came through the parasitic link made me understand that she was just being lazy. Her hands waved to and fro with her kicking boots from her position of rest.

Tearing my hair out at this point, I edged ever closer to the warehouse they were stationed in. Voices began to trail back in through the ears of my unsuspecting lazy target.

"Yeah well, Junior, I got the job done, _so _what's the problem?" I frowned at the words.

_'Was the job from yesterday? Those murders were only a job? Or is it something else?'_ I thought to myself as whoever was Junior started to talk.

"The problem, Roman, is that now we have to deal with an increase in feds around here." Junior was apparently the larger man in the room, and oddly, I found that fitting that his voice was rather low. "You can handle a crackdown, but me and my boys can't. You know how much turf we had to give up last time they ran an investigation on us?"

"Please," Roman drawled back, and my target cracked open her eyes long enough for me to get the understanding that Roman was the one with orange hair. "All you got to do is sell some of your merchandise to someone who can get the big bucks. With the Reds moving here from Vacuo, and some _hero _out on the streets, you have to look at the bigger picture, my friend."

There was a growl of anger as I leaned into an alleyway next to the warehouse. Was it dangerous to get so close? Yes, but my parasitic perception worked best the closer it was. A rather annoying tradeoff, but I quickly switched my illusions to a different power that was radiating off Roman. If only my target would cooperate and open her eyes instead of playing around.

_[Escape oriented path recognition. Enhanced dexterity.]_

Plans of running away filled my head as I neared. The dexterity let me move more deftly, and with more surety in my movements. All in all, I felt pretty confident about my plans to get out of there if I had to. I even still had my parasitic perception on the lazy girl just in case she went after me under an illusion.

Junior started to speak again. "The bigger picture is that the Reds took over the entire underworld near the docks in a month, dumbass! There's a reason that they're called the Reds, you know. They didn't really name themselves, Roman, and I sure as hell know that they don't tolerate independents like you."

"Can't we just calm down, Junior?" Roman asked, and there was a clink of something glass.

_'A bottle?'_ I thought, distracting my attention from the conversation to how Roman got the bottle in the first place.

"The Reds are a problem, yes." Roman said through the sound of something clinking nearby. "However, I have a plan for them, but I need your men again. Sell me what you don't want the police to find, and I'll return with enough profits to make us kings."

"This isn't about profit now, Roman!" Junior shouted as several metallic clicks rang out. Briefly, I watched as the originally resting girl had zeroed in on junior. He looked like a well dressed gangster with his trimmed beard and hard eyes. The two girls at his sides seemed to stand at attention as his volume increased. "This is about trying to stay out of the way of the Reds till they grow bored of Vale. Some of the Union's men came to me with a offer of a truce till we are sure that they're gone."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk." Roman tutted a playful tune despite Junior's clear aggression, and I felt like I understood his arrogance here. His power was probably feeding him a ton of ideas on how to escape if he really was in trouble. "I had expected more from you Junior. Maybe playing king on your own little square of concrete paradise has dulled you. Think about it, the Reds have left Vacuo, and soon there'll be a vacuum of shady power there. A vacuum that you and I can fill with the appropriate means, cementing a new kingdom away from the streets of Vale. Think about it, Junior; would you rather be a small timer, wasting his days in a ruined portion of a great city, _or _would you like to spread onto more horizons with enough lien to make kings jealous?"

"That's…" Junior's voice was heavy and considering. "What do you have in plan?"

"See! That's the Junior I know!" Roman exclaimed. "I have a perfect plan for the cesspool that is Vacuo, but first, I require your help with something."

Junior snorted, amused. "Of course, if we can really take some of the underground in Vacuo, what do you need?"

"We need to distract the Reds long enough for us to pull this off, but I'm going to run a little shock and awe for all the folks in the western mansions of Vale." Roman was definitely smiling at this point, revealing all of his dastardly plans. "How much do you think the Reds took from the gangs that littered the docks?"

I got the impression that Junior was paling rapidly. "You can't mean to…"

"I can _and _I will!" Roman cut in happily.

"This is _madness_, Roman!" Junior yelled back. "You're really thinking of targeting the Reds? On their own turf no less! Haven't you heard enough horror stories to tell you that that's a horrible idea? One of them has literally never been _touched _ever since his appearance!"

"Please, Semblances come in all forms." Roman chided, not even worried about this seemingly impossible foe. "They have their limitations, and I'm sure our helper would be wonderful at finding out what those might be."

"What do you mean, Roman? What helper?"

"Why, I am talking about Blondie who followed Neo all the way here, _and _has been listening to our entire conversation for some time now." Roman said nonchalantly, as if saying that it would rain today. "You wouldn't mind sparing your little twins to go and get our little eavesdropper now? After all, he has heard quite a bit of incriminating topics." Briefly, I felt the eyes I was looking through open to find Roman looking straight into theirs, and then he winked knowingly.

"Damn it, Roman!" Junior growled, probably realizing that he was now forced to follow along with the orange villain's plot. The two girls beside him were already running out the doors to the warehouse.

Glass shattered behind me as I realized that, while I could see through her ears, my target could see through her illusions. That that bottle I had heard earlier wasn't Roman getting thirsty, but a glass based illusion slinking nearby.

I had blearily accepted that I had been duped; as well as noted that sharing senses comes with some sort of tunnel vision. Somehow I had been found, and Neo, or whatever the diminutive girl's name was, had realized that I was following her. It hit me that whenever she was lazily waving her hand around, she was actually signing something to Roman.

Not having the time to think, I pulled on Roman's power, and a path to escape filled my mind. Hurriedly, I switched out the parasitic perception for illusions, wrapped my face in a scarf before making a few replicas of myself to run out of my alleyway.

_[Semi-physical glass-based illusions. Illusion oriented spacial awareness.]_

Neo would be able to instantly tell which one was which, but she was too busy inside with Roman, gloating about how they had seen through my poor attempt at tailing someone. Still, she wasn't able to say her input as I knew she suddenly found all the new illusions that she most certainly didn't create.

The twins were already around the corner as I ran, and were stumped by the sudden appearance of multiple blondes. However, the novelty ran out quick as they pounced on the wave of blondes with claws and bladed heels.

The red one had a pair of long, red claws that scythed through my glass illusions, sending shards of the semi-physical material through the air. The white one was kicking about with silvery stilettos attached to equally appropriate stiletto heels. They were making short work of my distraction, but the thing that they had neglected was the fact that the raining shards slashed at them with the reactionary force to their attacks.

Or they would have been if it weren't for the sheen of light that stopped the sharps pieces of glass from even marring their skin. In fact, they were speeding up faster than normal humans should, and hitting harder than their body's suggested. I blankly stared at the phenomenon with bugged eyes, Roman's power was filtering the information into another plan for escape.

_'Where the hell does that power come from?!'_ I screamed internally. That little sheen of color was definitely a cheat of some kind that I desperately wanted.

Many paths were closing up as I factored in their enhanced speed, but I split off more illusions as I mixed in with them. My distraction was slowly becoming moot. The twins were catching up with me, and, for a brief second, Roman's power was saying that I had exhausted all my escape routes.

Then a bullhead flew overhead. The mechanic contraption roaring in with thrusters on full blast that was just barely within the city's flying limits, and with it, came several more warmths that _shone _to me. It was a metallic box of suicide that made all sorts of torture on my queasy stomach, but, right now, I thought it was the most beautiful thing in the world.

_[Tactile matter dissociation. Inertia-dependent rapid acceleration.]_

I quickly slotted out illusions for the tantalizing escape power, and was gone in a cloud of white petals. Everything on me: my clothes, sheathed sword, gun and all the ammo I had been given had transitioned into petals as well. It was rather odd suddenly becoming a very cloud of distorted matter, but the power was telling me that this was the correct way to use it.

In the brief window of marveling at becoming a cloud, one of the twins reached me, slashing through my form with a series of furious swipes. However, all they really accomplished was me having to spend the extra effort to pull those parts back to the main cloud, but by then I was already moving, rapidly picking up speed. It was only when I got to an empty stretch of road, I _really _sped up, leaving my opposition in the dust.

Behind me, the twins struggled to keep up with my immaterial form as the illusions of glass slumped in shards of sharp silicone. When I sharply turned around one corner I split up into two clouds of petals, and I well on my way out of there. I would have to rejoin the two halves later, but the one that waited just a bit before leading the twins on a false lead was rather gratifying.

They chased the cloud to a nearby alleyway that ended in a concrete wall. Shouting at me, they advanced slowly, but, in this state, I couldn't even hear them beyond knowing that they were talking to me. Junior and Roman rounded the corner to the little showdown a second later, one had a face a grim acceptance and the other a sure grin.

Glass shattered behind the cloud, and a smirking Neo appeared behind the deluge of petals. If I had the capacity to laugh, I would as the petals flew up above the laws of gravity. They disappeared over the lip of the nearby buildings, returning to the other cloud that I had split from earlier.

They had duped me before, and I was only returning the favor.

-x-

My body reformed as soon as the power of whoever was riding that bullhead left my range. I sent a silent thanks as I stumbled awkwardly from suddenly going from faster than a cloud of sentient petals should be to a below average jogger.

Laughing as I tripped up a little bit, I was in too good of a mood at my successful escape to notice that there was someone in the way of my path. And I slammed into them with enough force to send the two of us into a tangle of mismanaged limbs.

A slight, high-pitched shriek rang out from beneath me, and I fought to keep the stars out of my vision as I moved to get up. Long brown hair and chocolate, doe eyes stared up at me in part fear and apprehension. However, I froze when my eyes landed on a pair of floppy, brown rabbit ears that tickled my nose.

Animal traits on a human body always confused me, but I quickly schooled my features as I realized that I had run into a Faunus. A Faunus that looked on the verge of tears as I continued to stay stock still above them.

"Uh, um, I'm sorry…" The Faunus below me murmured, as if afraid I would lash out at her.

"Oh, oh, no," I said in a hurry, dragging myself away from her with a rosy blush staining my face. "I should be the one to be sorry! I ran into you, after all… Uh, sorry about that."

"You're fine…" Rabbit ears drooped as she stood on steady feet. She definitely recovered from the hit more than me as I swayed uncertainly next to her. "Actually, um, are you fine?"

"Yeah! Don't worry about me; I have practice with getting tossed around." I explained, sheepishly rubbing the back of my head. Just then I realized that my sword, gun and ammo were spilled out over the pavement.

I groaned at wondering how long it would take to clean this up. Only slightly hoping that I hadn't damaged anything. The durability of my weapons were a rather nice bonus that had made itself known when I could actually understand how tough they were.

"Here, let me help." The rabbit Faunus hurriedly said while picking up a couple of bullets.

"Thanks." I replied, taking my sword and pistol.

When we were both done with the clean up, the sun was beginning to set, and the rabbit Faunus was looking apprehensive about the area. I just then realized that we were still within the eastern parts of Vale. That and I had a deluge of dangerous individuals after me who might or might not be really close.

The nervousness of the two of us were shared in equal amounts as we both didn't particularly want to be there. Turning to my unwilling crash testing partner, I raised a hand out to greet them. "I know it wasn't on the best of terms, but it's nice to meet you. My name's Jaune Arc; it's short, sweet and the lad- err, I mean my name is just Jaune…"

It seemed my nervous introduction was perfect for easing the tension as the girl giggled softly, taking my hand in her own one. "Nice to meet you Jaune. My name is, um, Velvet Scarlatina."

"Great!" I exclaimed, startling Velvet. "Now that we know each other, let's get out of here!" Then I paused, dawning understanding of how my words could be construed came to me. "I mean, I didn't mean it that way! Just, you know, east Vale is pretty bad. Uh, evil villains lurking around the corners…"

"Yes…" Velvet said slowly, doe eyes blinking in confusion. "But I, uh, need to sign up for Beacon first. I had thought that there was a office here, but I got lost for awhile."

I wanted to say something about how similar her case was with a certain mountain of a man, but I kept my mouth shut about the coincidences. Instead, I smiled at the brown haired Faunus. "How about I take you there? We're fairly close."

"That sounds great, but, um, do you want to?" Velvet said with a small tone. Her voice was so soft as if she was getting ready to bolt.

"Why wouldn't I?" I asked back.

Velvet shrunk into herself, mumbling something that sounded rather depressing. "...Because I'm a freak…"

I frowned, taking the self-deprecating Faunus's hand in mine. "You're an _not _a freak. And anyone who tells you otherwise is a complete idiot," I said, watching as she flinched from my words. "Now come on, let's go before it gets too dark."

Velvet made no other words until we reached the application office. However, she did stutter to demand my number after everything was done. She was weird, but nice.

-x-

I shuffled through my doorway, half exhausted from my long day, and looking through my Scroll at the two new numbers that I had gotten. If it wasn't for the whole situation with Roman and Neo really getting to me, then I would have been ecstatic to get the numbers of _two _potential friends. On the plus side, I got information on who I needed to look out for with both Junior's gang as well as the knowledge to _stay away_ from anything that had to do with the Reds.

In fact, I had pulled up some of the articles relating to said group of villains, and had found that they were a group of seven that had risen from Mistral's undergrounds nine years ago. Researching them more, I found several terrifying accounts of one of their members going toe to toe with whole _teams_ of trained Huntsmen.

I had no illusions that I was powerful enough to call myself a Huntsman, but to hear that one person could take on whole teams of my heroes -as in, a terrifying double digit- was enough for me to decide not to mix it up with them. In the meantime, I found myself looking up Roman, Junior and Neo.

Roman himself, had quite the large string of larceny cases in several areas of Vale, Vacuo and Mistral. He was rated as a master thief with a high level of training for Huntsmen, and was labeled as highly dangerous. His wanted poster was actually rather tantalizing as he had robbed several disgruntled wealthy people enough for them to chip in parts of their fortunes for his arrest.

Junior wasn't as _big _as I thought when I began looking him up. Apparently, he was some small time gang lord that had many completely 'legal' businesses to his name. I considered them all to be a front for his darker deeds.

Neo was the confusion. I found nothing about her, even when I lucked out and found a power that let me understand the fundamentals of technology and hacked into the information logs for renegade Huntswomen. She was a ghost that had seemingly appeared from nowhere, but I found accounts of some trained professionals being hired by Roman. One of whom was theorized to be some type of glass projection.

Or illusion.

I walked through my apartment with that thought in mind as I found something out of place. The papers around my living room table had been shuffled through. It was as though someone had been looking through my stuff before placing it back in a close enough approximation of where I had it before, but I was used to being clean and tidy. They had covered it well even if I noticed the attempt instantly.

Just like how I noticed I had _company _in the form of several well dressed men in suits. I also smelled the familiar tang of gunmetal. They had hidden themselves in a couple of the nooks and crannies of my place: the closets, behind the counter of my kitchen, and in another guest room that I normally kept closed.

I stilled at the realization that I was somehow followed back home. Then I fell into a calm acceptance of the situation, assessing how I could get out as well as finding any nearby power to help me out.

They all were completely without warmths, so I had missed them when I had just walked in, attention focused on my Scroll. However, I noticed them before they attacked as they had made the mistake of not knowing how tidy I had my place.

My closets were never slightly open like they were now, my kitchen was much more cluttered than normal, and I could see that they had removed any kitchen knives from easy to reach places. Most of all, I could literally hear them breathing softly as I pretended to be on my Scroll.

My sword was in my room, and I had no idea how fast there guys were, but I could safely say that I couldn't reach it in time. What I did have on me was my pistol, as I was going to research it later for tips on its use.

The lucky thing was that Rouge's Weapons was actually fairly close to where I lived. It was one of the reasons why it was the first shop I went to, but now that I knew that the owner had a clearly overpowered warmth with him, I was ecstatic.

_[Weapon based omniscience. Intent-oriented short-term precognition.]_

It was rather unfair as information began to flow into my head. How they would attack, how they would respond, whether I was actually seeing things, and what exactly I should do was all that flew into my brain. And it was all that I needed as I felt the comings of a smirk of my face.

"_So_," I drawled, thumbing the safety on my pistol. "I take it you guys aren't just in the wrong apartment?"

There was utter silence. Then there was thunderous gunfire.

-x-

_Hello, hello, just popping in with this update. Lay the ground work for future scenes, and introduce one of the little more AU parts of this world. After all, Jaune needs villains, and the Reds are a more (while blandly named) important characters to this story. There will be interactions with the RWBY group, but not for awhile. The only one who has any reason to be visiting Vale at the moment on the regular would be Yang and maybe Blake... actually Ruby could fit in there somewhere. Decisions. Decisions. _

_Anyways, please tell me how you feel about things. Love it, hate it, see some things that could be fixed? I am, after all, a glutton for attention. _

_As always, Enjoy!_


	4. Chapter 4

**_Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY or anything related to it._**

A helpful guide incase you get confused:  
"Dialogue"  
_'Thoughts'  
[Powers]_

-x-

Chapter 4 - Kicking Butt and Giving Names

The first thing I did while held at gunpoint was step forwards. It was the first future that didn't have everyone blowing holes in me or getting themselves hit in the crossfire. They would fire in the next two seconds, but I nor their buddies wouldn't get caught by a stray round.

Blazing rounds made my ears burn. It would've shocked me for a second, but I didn't really need to hear anything right now. All I needed was the precognition that manifested before me.

If I was being completely honest, Will Rouge's ability was borderline _cheating_. Of course, if you know what to look for, and exactly how it worked then it was easy to trick. For the unknown grunts, however, it was like they were in the palm of my hand.

Four different colored phantoms superimposed themselves over my sight, each pertaining to if I took a step left, right, forwards or backwards. Each phantom then placed themselves over everyone in the immediate vicinity. What step they wanted to take -or were thinking about taking- was all reflected mere seconds before they even started moving. The phantoms even showed me a brief look into the future all at one moment.

It wasn't all knowing, or something of the sort. The precognition just based itself around bodily and subconscious intent; specifically the intent of those around me. That meant if they were shooting at me, I would know before they even thought of pulling the trigger. Of course, this didn't mean that I could accurately find the paths of every bullet that flew at me, but with the second aspect of the power I didn't have to.

See, weapon omniscience didn't really apply to just the weapons I was holding. It applied to every single weapon in my sight; including the ones that I could see several seconds into the future. This meant that I knew exactly how fast the bullets would be coming at me, and if there would be any deviations from its path due to the mechanisms in the gun.

I twisted to dodge the three bullets that would have torn into me, letting their paths only trace small lines of blood from the sheer speed at which they traveled. They were something unavoidable given my physique. The wounds stung, but it was better than getting filled with hot lead.

In response, I raised the gun in my right hand, power feeding me everything about it. The bullets were high caliber rounds capable of shredding through people with disgusting ease. A sleek grip and a bulky barrel accentuated the weapon with a nice chrome finish.

Whatever work Rouge had done on it had changed the aerodynamics of the payload by a tiny amount. It wasn't much, but I didn't really like having to compensate for the bullets traveling left more often than not.

Despite that, and rather poor training with the weapon, I shot the gun. A deadly piece of lead burning a path through some unlucky soul's shooting arm. He basically threw himself into the way of the bullet, too.

He would be down for all the couple seconds into the future I could see.

My next target was someone closer to my room. A stockier fellow who would eventually unload his gun into the entire living room, hitting four of his comrades in ways that didn't look too comfortable.

I charged him as my precognition fed me how everyone was reacting. A couple of them looked shaken from the sudden confrontation while other reacted with a little more experience. I decided that those guys needed to go first.

The guy that I charged saw me, and pulled out a large machete, discarding the gun that would have felled his fellow man. His swings were predictable. An overhead chop followed by a horizontal slash; both of which I stepped into, and aligned the barrel of my gun to his foot.

My arm jerked as the gunshot rang equal with his shout of pain. He collapsed to the floor holding the new hole in his foot as I stepped over his body to kick the gun away from him. For good measure, I whipped him with the butt of my gun to knock him out.

_'Just in case,'_ I thought to myself as I thumbed the safety of the gun just as I kicked it. Superhuman knowledge on every weapon is rather nice when you need to disarm people.

I fired four times behind me, not really aiming for anyone, but more as a distraction. The next couple seconds were filled with cacophonous gunfire as I scrambled for cover, eventually finding refuge in a small closet. My little intruders had all come together to see me as a serious threat, and were now concentrating on ending me.

My shock was thoroughly used up, and I still counted eight more men firing at me; luckily, I had been able to down five people in the first few seconds. Two were lodged behind the fridge that they had pulled down for cover, three had stalked into the living room after they had saw me retreat and the rest were located in my room.

Precognition was telling me that they were gaining back confidence, and sooner or later they would begin to assault my small hiding spot. The ones in my room were beginning to filter out into the larger living room as the gunfire died down to a slow crawl. I saw one of them step up before he actually did.

"You can come out now." He said in a heavy accent. I couldn't quite place it, Vacuvian maybe? I would need to look it up. "Junior just said to rough you up a bit, and bring you in. We ain't tryna start a full on fight, Mr. vigilante."

Oh well that made everything better. Sure, let me turn myself in now that I know exactly what you want from me. It's not like we spent the last couple minutes redecorating my apartment via gunshots.

Instead of answering, I took stock of what exactly was happening. They stupidly announced the name 'Junior'. That meant he was with that orange haired man, Roman I think his name was, and Neo. Was this payback for what I had listened to earlier today? I didn't even know what exactly I had listened to.

As for my chances of taking them all out with my current position and skill... they were rather slim. Sure, I could see several seconds into the future based on their intent, but that held nothing in the way of actual combat skills. Most of the futures I could see involved me getting loaded up with a couple of permanent lead piercings in the most unpleasant of manners.

My breathing was growing ragged as I tried to calm myself. A couple of seconds of fighting, and I was already exhausted. Several places on my body were marred with small dribbles of blood from bullets that had cut too close for comfort. My shirt was in tatters; I really liked this shirt, too.

_'Geez, Jaune,'_ I berated myself internally. _'If you survive this then you really need to take up running, or the gym.' _

"We ain't got all day!" A particularly antsy man said. He would proceed to gun down my hiding hole in the next ten seconds if I didn't say anything. Precognition is stupid when you can't even react to it.

"Alright," I said as slow as possible, the nearby powers were flitting through my head. "I'm coming out, okay?"

"No funny business! We ain't tryna fight a Huntsman." The accented man spoke again.

I frowned a bit as he said that. I was in no way a Huntsman, nor was I inclined to believe that I was one. They were _heroes _who fought against monsters who I couldn't find the heart to match. Still, I don't think my internal preferences on what I was referred to as would stop the fight from escalating.

Instead, of answering the man I pulled on a nearby warmth and felt the knowledge sink into me.

_[Variable distraction-based focal points. Increased cosmetic affinity.]_

It was the only one that was around at this time, and was close enough to think through on the literal seconds that I had to get out of my closet. The power was also one that I had used several times before as my proximity to it was close in my apartment. I had the best bet with this than relying on powers that I found just lying around.

Essentially, I created areas where people's attention were more likely to be drawn. In a cramped space like this one with everyone wielding dangerous weapons, it was a rather potent ability to make use of.

Immediately, I threw the remains of my shirt to one side of the closet, landing with a heavier thud than I was expecting. Then I crumpled up into the opposite end as fast as I could. With how everyone was so tense, it was no surprise that they easily took the bait towards the distraction. I curled up into a ball as the rain of lead tore open my door.

_Then _the moment that I had been waiting for happened.

Out of everyone firing, there were two people whose guns hadn't been properly cleaned in a long while. Whether it was from carelessness or pure laziness, I had no idea, nor did I care as their guns jammed suddenly. There was a lapse in the gunfire in their immediate vicinity that I had hoped for a while before I arrived in the closet.

This improvised plan worked like a charm, and I burst out of the closet like a teen who just had his home shot up would. Everyone was startled by my sudden, bullet hole-less appearance that a couple of them forgot to even reload, snapping at me with futile payload. The ones who actually had ammo left were easily sidestepped as I had already seen which ones were dangerous, and they were too spread out to actually lay down anything that resembled cover fire.

The _shock _was gone, but now it was the _awe's _turn to take centerstage.

I reached one of the men with the jammed guns before anyone could refute my sudden charge. He gave something between a scream and a yelp before I slammed my fist into his throat, distracting him from the fact that I now had the slide of his gun in my hands. It was easy to dismantle, and I put it to much better use than when he had used it whole.

Using the slide of the gun as a makeshift knife, I embedded the metal into a nearby man's forearm before he could raise his gun. He screamed in pain, but I cut him off as I swept his legs off the floor, sending him crashing down in a heap. His head cracked painfully on my hardwood flooring. There were no moves to get up now or in the immediate future.

I knocked out the man whose gun I had just repurposed, grabbing the rest of his defunct gun as I quickly strode to my next target.

The next man was met with a face full of a thrown gun that seemed to find him before he completed his dodge. I saw a tooth or two fly out as he collapsed before I ducked behind my couch, and bullets bore into the thick cushion, spraying varying amounts of cotton fluff into the air.

I spun on a dime, throwing a cushion one way, making sure to drag everyone's attention there before I stood up and unloaded the last three bullets in my gun. It bucked as the payload blasted into their desired places.

The first shot hit rather close to where one of the less experienced men were hiding, and startled him out into the open. He fumbled with his gun, eventually finding the courage to shoot, and, miraculously, his aim would be actually lucky. It would have hit me dead on, too.

If no bullet collided with the his free hand, he wouldn't have screamed out and aimed into his friend's leg. He was too busy crying over the new hole in his hand to really care, though. His buddy was also now taking courses in the school of rolling on the ground and screaming. I sent a nearby broken lamp and table leg to silence them both to painful dreams.

My last bullet slammed into the arm of another man who had not been as distracted by the random plushie cushion. He took the wound like a champ, and shot back at me with only a small grunt of pain. However, his aim wasn't as accurate as it could've been.

I already knew where the bullet was going, but I hadn't the time to correct my stance as it tore a sizable chunk from my left shoulder. Biting my lip hard enough to draw blood, I kicked up another nearby pillow into his vision. Luckily, the distraction worked this time as he never noticed my now empty gun slam into his face. Twisting as I stepped forwards, I caught my gun just as it bounced off his surprising squishy face.

He collapsed like all the others, a large bruise welling up over his right eye. With my path finally clear, I _strode _forwards, and dove into the empty doorway of my bedroom. Easily finding my sword that I had spent good lien on, I turned around to find the last two who were now looking at me with a slight hint of fear. I could basically smell it at this point.

As much as I wanted to question that, I knew that it wasn't normal for someone to take down so many armed men in such an enclosed space with nothing but a pistol. I barely took anything greater than the large gash on my upper left arm, so it could almost be counted as a near flawless victory.

Well, considering my past fights, it was _certainly_ a step in the right direction.

I wanted nothing more than to ask if we could talk this out, but the awe was still in effect. Instead, I smiled as happy as I could through bloodied teeth. "So, I take it you guys don't have any insurance that can pay for all these damages?"

One of them shook his head numbly. His gun was trying to raise between his shaky hands. I looked him with the straightest face I could muster, then raised my sword in my hands, twisted the special handle mechanism and watched as the straight blade spun into a jagged, segmented whip of deadly, metal shards. He slowly lowered his gun.

"Screw this! I didn't sign up for some crazy Huntsman who doesn't fight with Aura, and still hands us our asses!" The other one yelled, jumping out the window in an impressive display of commitment. There was a slight yelp up as he collided two stories down, but, for the most part, he seemed to be in great health. His limping grunts of effort could be heard for quite awhile.

I looked back to the last standing member of Junior's task force, and watched as he squirmed under my gaze. He looked like he was regretting not taking the very same actions. His attention snapped back to me as I opened my mouth, I was falling into my hero mentality to hide the fear of the whole situation hitting me, "You want to explain what happened here? Or maybe why you thought it was a great idea to attack me when I wanted to rest a bit?"

"I- I'm sorry!" The man stuttered, throwing away his gun. "I was just following orders! It was supposed to be an easy job! Only to grab you when you slept, and maybe rough you up a little bit before we delivered you to Junior! I _swear _it!"

"I see…" I stated, letting the thoughts click in my head. This Junior was definitely out to get me, and for him to easily find me meant that he was willing to easily escalate.

A small lance of fear ran through me, wondering if he knew exactly who I was, and about my sisters and family. I had no plans of getting them involved in this, but if whoever this Junior was could find me, then I wouldn't put it against him on being able to find my family. He obviously had no scruples of targeting me in my own apartment with armed men.

The slight inklings of rage seemed to be appearing in my visage as the still conscious man had fallen to his knees. "I'm so sorry, Huntsman, sir! Please believe me that I didn't want to do this! I just wanted the lien!"

"Lien?" I queried, a small amount of anger spiking up as the idea that the information of my family was being spread around for a little lien was very unsettling.

The man seemed to curl in on himself more, whimpering now. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm-"

He was suddenly droned out by the ring of my Scroll. I realized that I had dropped it right before this entire charade had started. Then the ringtone reminded me of the fact that I hadn't called my mom, and it was also very late at night.

The man was looking at me in some form of fear and hope now. I frowned at him, shaking the metal whip sword in my hands, and reforming it back into a straight sword. "Don't make a sound… Also don't move," I tacked on, but felt that I was being a little too forceful before I added, "_Please_."

He promptly crouched on the floor, and proceeded to do just that. I danced between the wheezing bodies between my Scroll and me. Taking it in my hands I noted that the only casualty of the entire fight had been my Scroll's glass screen. It was shattered beyond all repair.

Stifling a tear about not having it for a couple weeks, I tapped the screen to accept the call from my mom.

"Jaune!" She started out screaming. Great. "Where have you been? I've been trying to reach you for the past thirty minutes!"

I held back from saying that I couldn't hear the ring over the gunfire, and just pulled on my distraction power. "Sorry, I was watching a movie, and the action scenes were pretty loud."

"Hmm? I heard those have rather realistic," She mused, latching onto the distraction. "I hope you're not disturbing your neighbors. I know I didn't raise you to be impolite, Jaune."

"Right, um, I totally forgot." I said, taking a moment to hope that my sudden guests had taken the foresight to remove people from the building. Though, considering the warmth that was approaching my door, I wasn't going to enjoy the answer.

"Don't you think I don't understand what you're doing, young man." My mom then quipped back, and my back began to sweat with the implications of what she meant.

"What do you mean, Mom?" I asked, palms sweaty.

I could practically hear her already tearing into me. Precognition didn't really help with anything over the Scroll either. "What other reason would you have for watching a movie at this hour? Do you think I can't hear breathing in the background? Jaune, when did you think you were going to tell us?"

I felt my heart sink at her words. It appeared that the whole thing was out of the bag now. Sighing, I got ready to apologize before I felt my distraction power picking up that it was working.

My mom finished whatever misconception she had come up with as I wallowed in my confusion. "When did you think of telling us that you got a girlfriend?"

I blinked, looking to the sole other person in the room who could make sense of the situation. He was looking at me, face pale. I think he was more worried about his life than to help me out of this one. Though, he ended up shaking his head in all sorts of ways, hoping one answer was the right one.

"Don't think we didn't notice you sometimes forgetting to call. You were rather obvious about it, too. Acting all shy around the topic about your disappearances, but don't think that your mother's intuition ever led her wrong!" My mom's declaration wasn't even close to being right.

"What… Mom, actually," I started, pausing to wonder what exactly I was revealing. I can't just say that 'no, I'm actually going out and beating up bad guys while gathering information on them, and just now I was in a huge fire fight in the middle of my cramped apartment.'

"What?" My mom asked incredulously. "Could it be that I was wrong?"

She had gotten the idea that I had a girlfriend in her head, though, and it was an easy way to hide what exactly I was doing. Would it be so hard to say that me and this mysterious girlfriend had broken up before my parents asked to see her?

I get to continue to be a hero with them none the wiser, and mom is happy that I am getting to know people. It's a win-win scenario; what could go wrong?

"Nothing," I decided. "Yeah, you guys caught me. Me and…" I frowned as I wondered who exactly I knew that my parents would most certainly not meet. It wasn't like I was swimming in prospective girls who would enjoy having their name being used to assauge my mom's worries. Then, a name came to mind, and I hoped that this wouldn't come back to literally stab me later. Before I even had the chance to think through my lies, I was speaking, "... Neo. Have been dating for awhile now. I just didn't want to tell you guys since it was still kinda early, you know."

"Oh, this is wonderful!" My mom gushed from the other end. "I want to know everything! We're going to meet her when we all come to visit, right?"

"Uh…" I was regretting all my choices. "Yes?"

"Great! Violet and Coral are coming along, too. Is that fine?"

I swallowed my nerves. My twin, younger sisters were definitely a terror that would prod the truth out of me, but if I kept saying that we broke up it would be fine. Hopefully. "Of course." I was finding lying to be much harder than I thought.

"Well, I don't want to take up you and this Neo's time together, so I'll leave you alone for now. But I want you to call us more often from now on, Jaune!" She asserted.

"I'll try."

"No, Jaune, I want you to make an Arc's promise to call us more often!" My mom was stubborn on this, and I had the inkling that she wanted to catch all the gossip on Neo, my supposed girlfriend… A primal shiver traveled down my spine at that.

So I made the best decision of tonight. "Zzt! What was that mom?" I chickened out. "Bzzt! I think I'm losing you! Crzzt! Love you, Mom! Bye!"

I clicked the Scroll off before she could she respond, and turned back to the silent man. Then I realized that he had heard my name several times in the conversation. Too caught up in what my mom was saying or the fact that she called, I had failed to remember the fact that this man had just tried his hardest to kill me.

"Uh…" The man was tense from his position on the floor. I think I was projecting a bit, but I was seriously considering violently making sure he kept quiet.

Not killing him, of course. Maybe just put the fear of _Jaune _within him.

So I leaned in over him, my sword in one hand and empty gun in the other. He shivered like the unconscious bodies around him.

"You have two options." I said as clear as possible without my voice wavering. "One, you can accept my vengeance for destroying my place, and hearing my name." I stated, holding up my sword. Then I switched to raising my empty gun. "Or two, I can be merciful so long as you turn yourself in to the police, and admit to every crime you've ever committed."

The man shook, taking in his options, and I was slightly distracted by the words 'vengeance' and 'mercy'. Maybe they could be the names for my weapons? It was a little cliché, but who cares? He was just about to speak before there was a rather abrupt knock on my door. I suppressed the need to jump at the action, but the shivering man wasn't so lucky.

He gave a small yelp and scrambled backwards.

_'Are you really that scary, Jaune?'_ I thought to myself as I looked to the door before I froze for a second. The link to one of my powers was behind my door.

Frowning, I knew that Rouge was still at his shop, and that only left the distraction power. They had certainly been around before this whole fiasco, so were they a disgruntled neighbor about to complain about the noise? Whoever it was, they had picked to worst time to introduce themselves at least.

I shot a withering look at my unwilling captive before opening the door. Peaking just enough to hide the large gash in my left arm, I found who was up at this hour.

The first thing that came to mind was how much cosmetic affinity showed on her. Dressed in only a pair of short shorts and thin top, this one girl had my eyes bulging from their sockets. Her clothes matched so well, and they just so happened to leave enough for the imagination that my teenage brain, addled with horrible hormones, didn't know where to look. In the end, I settled on her eyes.

The daring brown eyes bored into me from their perch on her delicate features. However, they were promising nothing delicate with how much anger I could almost feel roiling off of her.

A lock of hair was dyed a vibrant orange in contrast to her deep brown hair, cut just above her ears. Her skin was pale as well, not as pale as Neo's, but certainly the second most clear skin I had seen in awhile.

"Uh… hi." I waved lamely.

Then I felt her power drawing attention away from her hands, and looked down to find a disturbingly large gun propped in her hands. The pistol looked more geared to drop aircraft than get into the firefight I had just been in.

Slowly, I shifted her from hot girl to probable psychopath. No normal person has weaponry like that.

"Hey…" The girl finally ground out, voice gravely as if she just woke up. "Look, I heard noises…"

I pulled on Rouge's power before I did anything. With no futures showing she was going to shoot me on the spot yet, I opened my eloquent mouth, "What noises?"

She twitched. "You know…" Her power dragged my eyes to her midriff as she gesticulated with her artillery weapon. From how easily she swung it around, she must've been hiding super strength somewhere. "The gunshots?"

She sighed tiredly. "Are you under distress?"

"...No?" I answered.

Her exhale was filled with much more fire and exhaustion. "Listen, buddy, whoever you think you are. I don't care if you or your boyfriend, girlfriend, or whatever are having a good time, but I happen to have a very important test for Beacon tomorrow, so if you don't mind quieting down, that would be appreciated."

"Uh…" I honestly didn't know what to say. She was obviously aggravated by being woken up, so I probably shouldn't antagonize her. "I'm sorry."

"You should be." The girl glowered, turning around to head to her own room.

"Oh, uh, if you have any other problems, my name is Jau-"

"Don't care." She cut me off before I could introduce myself, and really, I had no idea what I was trying to accomplish there.

She did say that she was trying for Beacon as well. To think I had met three prospective students in a day. Though, Velvet didn't really strike me as a protector of mankind; I hadn't even thought of checking her super power in case that was part of her acceptance. Still, what are the odds of everything happening?

_'And on that note…' _I thought, closing my door to find my shivering captive. "Can you tell me about Junior?"

It only took a few seconds before the loyalty to his employer broke.

-x-

_Just gonna say it again, but I wrote this before I learned of CVFY's Semblances. For those of you who don't know them, the RWBY website should have them. Since its already part of my written story, I didn't really want to change it. The only one who I got semi-right could be Velvet. _

_Now that that's out of the way, I wanna ask how was the fight scene? Personally, its some juicy action, but more of an explanation in the process. Precogs are all bullshit by themselves, just saying, so I toned it back. Also, I have to ask if y'all like the Semblances so far? Because soon they'll be escalating. Mainly as Jaune gets more into the underbelly of the four kingdoms, but for now, he's gotta throw hands with some vilains. _

_As always, Enjoy!_


	5. Chapter 5

**_Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY or anything related to it._**

A helpful guide incase you get confused:  
"Dialogue"  
_'Thoughts'  
[Powers]_

-x-

Chapter 5 - Remarkable Qualities of Violence

It honestly wasn't that hard to get everyone tied up with some zip ties I had laying around. The hard part was getting everyone out of my room, and cleaning up the various blood trails that dragging them left. Fortunately, increased cosmetic affinity lent to not only my own appearance but that of inanimate objects as well.

All that left with me now was an empty apartment, devoid of anyone. It said something about my mental health when I began to miss the scared ramblings of my last conscious conversation.

Instead, I was left _boiling _with the information he had given me.

_'This is crazy…'_ I thought rapidly, grabbing fistfuls of my blonde locks and plopping down on my bullet ridden couch. On the bright side, I never needed to complain about it being stiff ever again.

That nearly sprouted a laugh from me as I distracted myself from my supposed opponent. In reality, I was a shivering mess of nerves and teenage hormones.

Junior wasn't some thug like my last couple of fights; he was an honest to gods crime lord who was known quite well on this side of the continent, Sanus. According to my source, he knew where I lived, my name, my expenses and even had _several _moles in the police. There was nothing to say that he didn't already know who my entire family was.

This was no longer about me wanting to go out, and try to be a hero. I now had to run damage control on someone who could effectively ruin me.

The worst part was that I had no clue what to do. I felt trapped with indecision, and all I could do was wallow in the silence that was my apartment.

It was torn to shreds. Bullet holes riddle the thick, plaster walls, and some of my floorboards looked ready to collapse anytime. Everything I owned was ransacked: my fridge thrown to the ground, broken. The nice papers I had placed in my kitchen were strewn throughout the place.

Everything smelt of gunpowder and blood; two smells I was getting disturbingly used to. In the heat of the moment, I never really paid attention to the bigger picture.

Or the fact that I was very, _very _sore.

_[Liquid contact based accelerated healing. Minor micro-hydrokinesis.]_

Taking a moment to connect to a nearby warmth, I started up a bath to soothe my wounded body. As I sat in the warm water that slowly sealed my bleeding cuts, I finally got enough energy to put my problems aloud.

"Okay, Jaune, let's think this through." I said, shaking a little.

"I have a bad guy, who knows everything about me, after my head. He's got who knows how many henchmen to do his evil business, and he doesn't like me for listening in on him and that Roman guy. I know he has a power along with those two girls that followed him." Frowning as a particularly painful wound closed up, I continued my monologue. "Now all I gotta do is figure out a way to stop him from attacking my family…"

I leaned back in my bath. "...all I wanted to do was to do some good…"

My healing finished for the most part after a couple of minutes. The sun was slowly climbing from the horizon, and a plan was forming in my head.

His actions threatened my family inadvertently, and an Arc doesn't let things like that go. I needed to let him know that that doesn't fly well against me. That threatening an Arc is one of the _worst _life decisions he had ever made.

Time was of the essence. I needed to react before Junior got the upper hand. He wanted to bring the fight to me, so he should be expecting a fight to come to him.

-x-

"Will that be all?" The lady at the counter asked tentatively. She looked back and forth between my awkward smile, the bags that I was carrying and the more bags on the counter.

"Could I buy more?" I asked, smile not even wavering.

She looked my up and down, frowning about something. "Could I see your official Huntsman registration, sir?"

"I left it at home." I answered rigidly. Perhaps it was my face that said that it was a lie, but we both knew it. However, no one said it out loud.

"Of course," The woman said smoothly. "But I can't legally let you buy more Dust from this store until I see a Huntsman license."

"Right, right." I nodded quickly, swinging the bags on my shoulders in the process. Pointing to the ones on the counter, I said, "Then I'll just take those, please."

"That'll be a hundred and fifty six Lien, sir."

Keeping the cramp inducing smile on, I hurriedly gathered my dwindling funds to pay for the Dust. When everything was almost over, the cashier looked at me weirdly before sighing.

"I am not one to judge, but could all those bags be filled with Dust as well, sir?"

My teeth flashed this time, everything about me was false. "Not at all!"

She decidedly chose not to answer for fear of incurring information she couldn't quite keep. We both knew there was something wrong with my actions, and the video cameras would probably attest to the fact that someone was buying loads of Dust throughout Vale all day long.

However, every single video would only show a different person adding to the growing sacks of volatile substance. A good portion of makeup, different clothes, malfunctioning cameras and, in some cases, some extra hush lien would obfuscate all the evidence.

_Jaune Arc_ would never be a suspect. Of course, I had no relation to the odd occurrences. And, after tonight, there would be no Dust to even link to the mass purchases.

Happily carrying my procured goods, I made my way towards an empty warehouse. The rusty doors, slicked with unseen oils, slid open with nary a screech. My hideout was shoddily made, but it served to not implicate my apartment with the person who had bought so much military grade Dust.

Who knew that one needed to be a registered Huntsman or Huntsman-in-Training to even buy so much. Though, that rule only applied on a store to store basis, and there were a surprising amount of people who simply looked the other way when you bought so much.

It left a sour taste in the back of my mouth at the corruption of all of it, but it was surprisingly helpful. I was also enlightened on the fact that I did something highly illegal without a second thought.

_'Well,'_ I thought actively._'It's not like I'm going to use all this Dust for bad… for reasons that seem morally horrible.' _

I stacked my bags on a small mound of it, and wandered over to an odd wardrobe that stood off to the side of the warehouse. Luckily, I was able to find a place that looked like there hadn't been anyone in here for years. A thick layer of dust had covered the floors, but that hardly mattered when it came to things.

Opening up the doors of my wardrobe, I was greeted with my current hero costume meant to hide my identity. Obviously there was a huge breach in information with regards to Junior, but I was hoping to hide it from those who still weren't informed.

Tonight would also rectify the inadequacies that Junior caused in my hidden identity.

A large beige coat hung over my shoulders and trailed down to a little bit above my ankles, hiding the skintight black undershirt that I wore underneath. It parted into three coattails around my legs to give me free range of motion. The thick material would also be good for some protection, but the bullet proof vest that sat between the undershirt and coat would help more.

A pair of thick blue jeans covered my legs to my heavy boots that had straps to secure themselves around my calves. Several belts strapped themselves around my waist, holding up my magazines for Mercy, and the gun's handle itself was peaking out just past my right hip.

Vengeance was held up diagonally by a magnetic strip that anchored to my lower back. The handle jutted out from my left side while the blade just barely trailed above the ground.

A larger, darker coat concealed my body and equipment. It's magnetic clips were there just in case it was stepped on or got in my way. For now, it would be useful in hiding my weapons.

Standing in my outfit, I felt a little bit of pride well up within me. My costume wasn't exactly complete, but that was only because I had a couple hours to actually put this together. In fact, I'd say it was rather impressive to find everything that I was looking for. Even if mister Rouge helped gathering more of the exotic materials like the magnetic weapon strip.

And while my first outing as a hero had gone horribly, and my identity was revealed not long after, I still wanted to do good.

This was a outfit I wanted to be seen as a hero.

And I was about to use it to threaten my enemies as well as commit what was probably a crime…

_'Don't think about that, Jaune.' _I told myself, feeling the shirt a little tight against my chest. _'Think of your family. You can't get them involved in this, and do what you have to do to make sure of that.' _

All in all, tonight was shaping up to be a good night. My hand clasped around the last bit of my outfit, and I adjusted the straps to fit my face.

A mask, fashioned out of a sleeker gas mask with removed oxygen canisters, was held to my face by two horizontal straps that swung around my head. The holes were covered by breatheable leather strips, and it was painted bronze with light blue lenses to hide my eyes. The whole thing completely covered my face, but let my blonde locks flow with the nonexistent wind.

My disguise was finally complete.

Smiling underneath my mask, I grabbed my bags of Dust and made my way to my destination: The Club.

Dear gods, that was a horrible name…

-x-

The problem with explosives was that they were not the easiest of things to place. Dust remedies most of the problems that normal explosions are based on, but it replaces it with the fact that Dust, in all accounts, is so reactive that simply breathing on it wrong will set off a chain of explosions that make buildings into rubble in mere moments.

You wouldn't think that places would sell this highly reactive material in stores right next to groceries. However, you'd also be wrong to assume that Dust's only application is making things explode. There are a plethora of things that Dust can be used for: cooking, the odd cleaning, powering your house and all manner of mundane things that apply to current living.

I'm fairly sure that most Dust stores are built in accordance with this logic. They simply want to get the helpful material to the common folk who know not that Dust serves as a powerful helper to most dangerous activities.

I mainly used Dust to help around the house, and only really when I had to cook for the twins. It was one of the reasons why I knew that mixing three parts of Fire Dust and one part of Electric Dust together would create a highly volatile mix that was assured to take out anything within a couple meters of the blast.

Of which I am told is very, _very _loud.

And now I am putting those makeshift charges next to The Club. I made sure to find a power that let me hide better, and watched out for the three powered members that I knew would be there. The people never knew that they now had several hundred kilograms of Dust placed around their place.

I wasn't sure how much damage that it would all cause, but I knew that it would cause _something_. Though, they might seriously want to invest in perimeter surveillance. All I had to do was duck past one guy who just stood in a very conspicuous alleyway.

With everything in place, mask on and costume set, the sun was just beginning to wane over the horizon as the broken moon of Remnant hung low in the sky, shattered moon pieces straying from the main celestial body. The stage was set, and it was go time.

Two warmths slotted into me at my calling, and I felt the links close by in the very club I was about to siege.

_[Single-target parasitic perception. Activatable shared perception.]_

_[Single-target parasitic Aura theft. Activatable shared Aura.]_

As the information flowed into my head, I couldn't help but notice that the powers were rather similar when every single one before had been distinctly different. I was sure that the two girls I had seen last time were twins of some sort with powers like these. However, I didn't immediately use either of them.

I didn't want a replay of last time; Neo had thoroughly taught me that I could easily be found out with either of them. As such, I chose to switch out the parasitic perception in favor of Junior's supposed power.

_[Volatile-composite-material remote detonation. Increased resistance against concussive force.] _

I frowned as the fact that he could easily use my explosions against me was made known, but I felt assured when I knew that he had to have an idea where the material was to detonate it. The only thing I was worried about now was the fact that I had no idea what 'Aura' was.

One of the girl's powers was to take it from someone else, but it never told me what Aura was. I didn't have the protection granted to me by Rouge's power anymore, so finding something that I couldn't understand was worrying.

In the end, I decided to figure it out as I blew things up.

I strode up to the establishment, an old brick building with multiple stories dedicated to the actual club. On the outside it looked like a normal building, but through the windows I could see lights flashing with multi-colored noise. Music was thumping hard enough that I could feel it bumping along with the beat of my heart.

Underneath my mask, I felt a small smirk tug my lips as I cut past the large line of people. Most of them took one look at my mask, and promptly left before they were dragged into anything. Others, however, were much braver.

"Hey! Who do you think you are? No cutting!" One of the people in line yelled at me.

I stared at him, and he didn't even flinch. Was this guy really serious? Figuring now would be a good time as any to parasitize whatever this Aura was, I connected to the girl who was on the other end of my copied power.

"Do you think that some weird ass costume lets you own the place?!" The man spat as I felt myself connect to what felt like two entire pools of solid warmth, the one I parasitized and the one that they were connected to. The metaphorical liquid flowed into me through the connection, and I suddenly felt looser; as if all the aches and pains that had stayed with me the past few nights were gone.

I felt _stronger_. Like I was no longer limited by my physical body.

"Hey, no fighting!" A man in a suit and red glasses at the front said, cutting in between the two of us while I was marveling over the amazement that was Aura. "If you're gonna fight, get outta line!"

"This man started it!" The same brave man continued, and now everyone was looking at my costumed self. There were some that caught that something was going on and left. More men in black suits and red glasses reached within their coats, fingering their guns anxiously.

"Hey," I finally replied through a coarse, fake accent. "Get out."

Everything happened at once. Junior's men in the suits hurriedly tried to take their guns. The big guy that was next to me and the brave man tried to slug me, and I calmly took out a packet of mixed Dust that I had stored in the inner pockets of my costume.

Immediately, I detonated the Dust after I tossed it up. See, the thing with Dust explosions was that they weren't as hot as normal ones with that much fire, but the kinetic shockwave was devastating. Being so close to it, everyone was shocked to the ground with unrefined crashes. The grunts who were taking out their weapons were caught within the blast radius, and thrown back into the hard brick of The Club with painful thuds before they even got a chance to use their guns.

With Junior's increased defense against concussive force, I easily weathered through the worst of the blast with only a slight stutter step. I even had the notion to protect the rude man who had held me up before.

He stared up at me with wide, unblinking eyes. I smiled under my mask, addressing him with a dismissal wave. "Shoo."

It was only with small amusement that I watched him scamper away. The rest of my time was spent sauntering through the double doors of the building, stepping over the unconscious bodies that separated me from the entrance.

The place was as loud as I thought it would be. Music boomed from several speakers situated around the building. Oddly enough, a man wearing a large bear head was manning the tower that held the DJ's booth.

A large, white and black tiled dance floor flashed with strobe lights and smoke that was hanging overhead by several pillars in the same color scheme. People danced without a care in the middle of the floor, and Junior's men mingled about the building in between the crowds and off to the tables around the edges.

Finally, I found Junior flanked by the two girls cleaning the glasses at the bar. He was talking to someone who I was fairly familiar with. Someone who had decided to jump out the window, too.

Making my way over there, I studied my three most worrisome opponents. Now that I could parasitize Aura I could sense a bit on who had some or not. Junior and the two girls had the energy, and if it was as empowering to me as it was to them, then I would be having a hard fought fight.

Junior himself was a fairly large man, dressed in a professional, black vest that clung over a white dress shirt. He had a well trimmed beard and a short crop of black hair that matched his eyes. I could easily see him benching me several times over.

His helpers were a weird mix, and now that I could see them clearly, they were definitely twins. Both of them wore a heavy coat of makeup and natural beauty that didn't distract from their smooth black hair. One girl wore primarily red, and her sister was garbed in a dress of snow white. I nearly disregarded them because they both were in high heels, but I remembered how fast some of my sisters could move in heels, and promptly stopped that line of thought.

"Hey," I said with a jaunty wave, hoping that my voice didn't sound too nervous. "Remember me?"

"Th- there he is, boss! He's the insane guy I was trying to tell you about!" The man who Junior was talking to blurted out, and suddenly I found that there was quite a bit of attention focused on me.

Junior looked me up and down from his place at the bar. The twin girls had left some time ago, but I was able to track them through sensing their warmths. "So you're… the _vigilante _that Roman talked about?"

"Yep." I said, enunciating the 'p' more than the rest of the word.

"Right, of course you are… so what do you want? I think you're too young to drink, though." Junior asked, reaching below the counter. I could almost feel his Aura trailing under his skin.

"I'm not in the mood to jest, Junior... I want all the information you have on me, and anyone I'm related to." I started, readying myself for how quickly everything was about to happen. "And I want it gone."

Junior's face was as impassive as ever. "Look, kid, I don't care what kind of hero you think you are, but I'm running a business. And I wasn't the one to decide to stick his nose where it doesn't belong." He shrugged as I heard several clicks echoing behind me. "Now, I don't really know what you have in plan here, but my acquaintance and I are thinking of using your talents. We can either do this the hard way, or you can save yourself the trouble and surrender now."

I frowned, noting how he never thought of asking for my help. He specifically said that they wanted to 'use' me as if I were some _tool _to be swung around, so I needed to bring things more in my favor. "I don't think you understand, Junior." I said, swinging closer to the bar and taking a look around. Almost everyone had left after we began talking. _Perfect_. "You see, I'm not asking."

The left wall of the building _detonated _in a boom of solid noise and fiery gas.

Brick, glass and people who stood too close were all caught within the massive explosion that encased most of that side of the building, sending them flying like comical ragdolls. Everyone inside the building collapsed as they felt the force of the explosion almost like someone took a sledgehammer to their chests. A ringing thump burned everyone's hearing, and if I wasn't used to loud noises, then I would've been rolling on the ground clutching my ears like some people.

Flying debris scattered some of the glasses around Junior and I, and some of the dance floor was ripped up in the explosion. Everyone who had trained their guns on me were now on the floor unconscious or incapacitated in some form. The only people who had weathered through the explosion were the twins who were still out doing something, the grunts who were now filing in and Junior and I.

I took the moment to speak as Junior was still shell shocked. Internally, I was freaking out at how devastating that explosion was. "No, asking is too much for you, Junior. Now, I'm _ordering _you."

"What…" The man was confused at the situation, and only slowly growing to understand what happened. His face fell through a series of very interesting shades. "Get him! Kill him!" He finally yelled, spurning everyone into motion.

I jumped back as he made to grab me, and moved much further than I intended. Landing in the middle of several gunmen, I quickly reacted to my change in environment to push the closest barrels out of my way, and reached behind me to grab the handle of Vengeance.

It shifted with a flick of the wrist, and the edges became blunted as I swung it to the closest man. He barely had the time to notice as Vengeance slammed into his side with a meaty smack and enunciated with disgusting cracks. I hadn't meant to hit him that hard, but the man flew from the force of my blow, crashing into anyone in his path.

No one hit got back up.

_'Was that Aura?'_ I mused silently, moving to my next target. This time I dialed back my strength, and the next man hit only collapsed in a pained groan instead of screaming in pain. However, he was still getting up, so I hit him a few more times to make sure.

The next couple of grunts went down with ease as I transitioned between them, smacking them with my blunted metal stick with extreme prejudice. Their attacks were so telegraphed that I felt it was slightly comical when I had thought of trying to get Rouge's power for extra help.

My arms tingled with a sort of numb pain as I moved them faster and harder, and I felt that I had definitely torn a couple muscles from using them so hard._'So Aura makes us remove our natural limiters, huh? Or something similar to a constant doping boost.'_ I mused as I felt more warmth gather in my damaged arms. _'But the passive healing helps...'_

Gunshots rang out as I moved, more often than not, striking the men who surrounded me. I made sure to weave in between my cover, kicking up broken tiles to block where most of the bullets were coming from or taking cover behind an unlucky man. A few lucky shots found me, too, but they were deflected by a red and light green parasitized sheen that covered me.

_'So that sheen was Aura…'_ I thought quickly, and, with my newfound bullet proof self, charged the furthest gunmen in a zigzag. They were quickly dispatched with a few swings of Vengeance.

Then a rocket hit me in a painful explosion.

I was sent flying into the broken parts of the building, crashing into raised pieces of broken floorings on my disorganized flight. I felt the sheen that surrounded me get weaker and weaker with each hit as I finally came to a halt. Marveling at the fact that the entire ordeal had only earned me a few extra bruises, I found Junior glaring at me with a huge obsidian rocket launcher slung over his shoulder.

_'So Aura can only block so much.'_ I slotted the information away, watching Junior from my position. In another time, I would have marveled at the fact that I survived that, but now was not the time.

After a few seconds of silence we both burst into motion. He fired a salvo of mini-missiles that all locked onto me like deadly, explosive swallows that followed my every move.

My eyes widened and pupils dilated as they neared at speeds that made my head hurt. However, I did the only thing that made sense to me. I paused to find the correct areas and grabbed hold of the triggers in the missile heads, setting all of them into a fit of fiery blasts.

I easily ran through the shockwaves of fire. The force of the explosions themselves didn't hinder me at all, and the heat was easily weathered through as I had felt much worse days ago.

Junior wasn't even surprised as I tore my way through the prematurely detonated missiles. He answered with another quick pull of the trigger, and a new salvo of missiles were launched my way.

This time I continued to run forwards, dodging past a couple of the easier to track ones while detonating the ones that were harder to dodge. I saved quite some time with my new strategy. Then I burst a particularly close missile that blocked my vision of Junior.

That was when another salvo of flying bombs surprised me through the clearing smoke.

I flipped over the first one in a fit of acrobatic instincts, waiting for Junior to take advantage of the opening and make it detonate beneath me. When my feet touched the ground without any unwarranted explosions, I found myself wondering what Junior was playing at. The rest of the missiles had missed me when I dodged.

_'He should've got me…'_ I frowned beneath my mask, feeling the heat of explosions behind me. A new plan was forming in my head.

The next shot of rockets was expected at this point, and I ducked under the first one, reaching out to a rather slow missile and grabbing it by its tail. The propulsion nearly dragged me from my spot, but I managed to dig my feet into the ground, a new bludgeon in my hand. One that Junior wasn't detonating.

I smiled as I realized that Junior _wasn't _using his power for whatever reason.

The rest of the missiles were warded off with me pushing them out of the way with Vengeance or detonating them before they reached me. I hadn't been using the sword as I had thought that Junior would have just detonated them before I could even ward them off, but now that I knew he couldn't for some reason, I could stop wasting time by dodging.

This time I shot straight towards the large man. He hurriedly jumped out of the way when I threw my caught missile at him. Finally, he started to panic as I grew closer, and fired off rapid shots of rockets.

I jumped over the first one, swinging Vengeance in the air to move a couple out of my way. The rockets were exploding before they even reached me in some cases, and the ones that drew too close were shunted off by Vengeance. He fired a final salvo as I was right in front of him.

However, that only sealed his fate as I detonated the ones closest to Junior. He was thrown off balance as I slammed into him from the air with a satisfying knee to his face. A sheen of red flashed as I made contact, and I was forced to jump back as he swung his rocket launcher at me.

The pieces of the weapon shifted and folded until the large man now held an equally massive bat. The only problem with his weapon was that there were still missiles inside the weapon; missiles that I knew of _and _could detonate.

The metallic bat crunched under the forces of all its ammunition exploding, sending its wielder to the ground in a blast of heat and force. The only reason why half his body was even unmarred was due to his increased defense towards concussive force. He was even trying to lift himself up on shaky arms.

I kicked him in the face to keep him down. Whether it was the Aura I had stolen empowering my attacks, or him just being weakened by the explosion, Junior's sheen winked out in what seemed like swirling veins of energy that dimmed to nothing.

Despite that, the man was still miraculously still conscious.

I wanted nothing more than to get this done at the moment, but the appearance of two beautiful bouncers set my plans back a few steps. Instead, I was treated to watching as the twins from earlier were now decked with their own dangerous weapons.

The red dress wearing twin had a pair of long claws attached to her wrists, and her sister had a pair of heels with blades that ran up to her ankles from the heel. They were incredulously looking around the destroyed place.

Then their eyes landed on my figure standing over their prone boss, fires from the previous explosions flickering behind me. My imposing height was blocking some of the light from reaching me, and most of my form was covered in soot and darkness. Honestly, I felt a little embarrassed that I was so dirty from my fighting. My nice clothes really paid for themselves, but getting soot and blood out of them was going to be a pain.

"Are you two going to fight me as well?" My voice was scratchy from fighting and from all the smoke. It sounded like some horrible approximation of a human voice. However, that didn't bother me as I was feeling a bit of confidence that Aura was giving me. There wasn't even the need to bring so many explosives either.

They just tensed at me. No one moved for awhile, and then they charged at me.

The night screamed as another wall was torn by explosions.

-x-

_So, I have changed timezones… probably going to affect my posting times, but hey, vacation! Anyways, Jaune escalates, Junior regrets, and the twins gape at what is going on. Things are about to get complicated when the supposedly easy mark turned into an overnight badass. Of course, that could be the multiple successes getting to his head. _

_Also, I'd like to thank those that reviewed! The guess for Jaune's power is scarily close to what I'm thinking of, but there are certain things missing. Certain things that'll be revealed soon... actually, later. _

_As always, Enjoy!_


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** I do not own RWBY or any of its franchise.

Also, A helpful guide incase you get confused:  
"Dialogue."  
_'Thoughts.'  
[Powers?]_

-x-

Chapter 6 - Discussions Require Destruction

Working for Junior had let Miltia and her sister see quite a bit of horrible and disturbing things throughout their three years of employ. It was to be expected that there would be some cocky gangsters or upstarts who thought that Junior, as mainly an information dealer, would be a easy target to start their claim on the underworld of Vale.

Miltia had forced them to learn the hard way that she had claws, and was unafraid of using them to carve just how stupid they were on their own bodies. She had always had a sadistic streak, Melanie had always said. She would deny her twin only because Melanie _didn't _have side like that.

She had witnessed The Club being raided several times, and even had to help rebuild sections of it. Hell, she even helped mourn for some of the grunts that had died in various territory wars. Miltia even bore witness to the horrors that the Reds normally left in their wake; she swore that there was more body parts than the bodies they counted.

However, despite seeing hell and coming back only slightly scarred, she wasn't ready for the sheer destruction that one _boy_ had caused. A boy that Junior had sworn up and down looked like some pansy who hadn't really seen the horrors of the world, and basically said that they would force the very same boy into working for them.

When Junior had said that the very same boy was going to be used in the girly-man's plot to screw with the Reds, Miltia almost resigned on the spot. _Except _Melanie didn't disagree, so Miltia's dissent never came to fruition.

Several well trained grunts and some extremely fit newbies were sent to grab the kid last night, too. It should've been easy. They shouldn't have had any problems with dealing with a kid that Neo had sneered at when they had asked if said kid was well trained; the girly-man had even laughed and promised that the kid wouldn't even be trouble.

Though, Miltia liked being thorough -so did Melanie, and looked through their gathered information to see who they were dealing with. Roman had stated him as probably having a Semblance that copied ones he had seen, but having the combat experience of a fresh grunt. Neo had added that his skills at stalking people was rather pitiful, too. They even found out that he had attended civilian academies before moving out to Vale with no ounce of Huntsman capabilities.

All in all, it _should _have been an easy job with high payout.

Miltia wanted nothing more than to stab those two with her claws. Their misinformation had caused fifteen of their best grunts to be arrested with injuries that ranged from bullets that would cripple them for life to severe head trauma from being knocked unconscious too long. They had even taken the bullets for testing in the small amount of time they found their grunts in cells, and Junior's moles said something about how they couldn't match the rifling on the bullets with any gun bought recently in Vale.

They should've seen that something was wrong when they got that information.

No _normal _person can buy a gun that can't be traced. No normal person could buy this much Dust in _one day_ without stocking it up for a long time. No normal person blew up a building in simple a bout of escalation.

Something had niggled the back of Miltia's head ever since she saw the boy walk through the doors of The Club with a _swagger _that didn't quite fit him. It was like he was acting out the role of a fool that tried to be cool, but that thought was dismissed when the boy in the costume started to talk to Junior. After all, she thought at the time, what could a simple boy with no backup ever do?

Miltia and Melanie had been sent to the back before they could hear anything, gathering their weapons on a silly protocol Junior set up whenever someone walked in with a weapon. They heard the explosions just fine, though, and the screams of grunts as they tried to fight back against a force of nature. The scariest thing was that, before they came back out, the explosions and screams had all but stopped.

Miltia spotted him first. His costume was once something that she would have laughed at only because a teen in a costume was just a delusional kid who normally did more harm than good. Now, it would be another horror to add to her memories.

When he rose, she noted just how tall he actually was. How he _towered _over them in his dark cloak, marred with soot. The fires that raided parts of their establishment eddied and cackled along with her heart, and the flickering shadows only served to accentuate the sharp lines of the boy- no, the _man_.

In one hand, a sword of odd make was held loosely, tracing edges in the floorings. His other hand was close to Junior, and a quick glance showed that her boss only had the odd wound or bruise, but he was clearly done. This madman had bested everyone without so much as a blink.

He turned to gaze at her and her sister, displaying the mask of dulled bronze. Miltia would never tell her brave sister, but she had froze up for a second while looking at those lenses of sky blue. Such an innocent color was now ruined for her.

When he finally spoke, Miltia broke out of her daze. His voice was scratchy and hoarse from the smoke, but that only served to make it all the more terrifying.

Melanie, her loving sister, stepped forwards first, no words being said. She already knew what her sister wanted. They no longer really needed words to fight so long as they could see through each other's eyes.

Miltia's Semblance _always _made her happy. She loved when she experienced the world as her sister; it made her feel that they were closer. Now, though, she would rather not look at the madman with two pairs of eyes.

Melanie was the first to rush forwards, Miltia close on her heels. They were on the costumed bomber in a second, peppering him with their tag team tactics.

Melanie sent a series of fast kicks, putting the costumed man on his back foot. Miltia wouldn't let the opening go, and struck with her claws before he had a chance to regain his balance. To their expectations, they raked harmlessly against his Aura.

However, the man could barely take the time to do anything. His sword was too large in places, and became just another crutch that he hid behind. Only sending an odd, but easily dodged, swipe of panic. Slowly, he was growing more erratic in his attacks as they attacked.

At first, Miltia's fears felt like a dream with how suppressed he was. She would swipe high while Melanie kicked low. He would struggle to block one, but get blindsided with the other, sparking a light green sheen to shimmer where he was hit.

Miltia only paused for a second as she frowned at the color. Light green was specifically the color of _her sister's_ Aura, and, while it could be a close approximation, Miltia still felt disgusted that he shared something with her sister.

Her attacks grew a little fiercer as her anger grew.

As if to spite her newfound anger, an explosion of sheer force and fire slammed into the two of them from a nearby wall like a hound from hell. Blasting them away from him long enough for him to gain some respite to their constant attacks. He twisted the handle of his sword briefly, and the large weapon shrunk down by a couple centimeters.

Such a thing didn't look like it would make a difference, but suddenly they found that he was a completely different person in skill. With the change he was now ducking and weaving against their tidal wave of bladed kicks and clawed swipes. He was even beginning to gain ground as he stopped trying to dodge every single attack, and let only a few through to hit against his Aura as he advanced to throw in attacks of his own.

Slowly, he was beginning to get a better grasp on how they fought. Miltia experienced wonder at how it seemed like he was trying to get used to Aura, and even gave small flinches as particularly nasty hits were warded off by the energy. It was almost as if he never expected the energy to be there before.

Still, no matter how proficient he got with Aura, or how skilled he suddenly became at a shorter sword, he was still leagues behind them in terms of close combat skill. Sure he could throw a textbook parry every now and then, and he would give a slash or stab, too, but they were all easily seen through. All he was doing was staving off his inevitable defeat.

By all means, they were grinding his tenacious spirit down slowly. There should have been no way for him to even dream of fighting back. However, that was when things started to get crazy. The madman jumped back in a small window where both Miltia and Melanie had paused their attacks. Miltia was the more apprehensive the two, trying to understand what exactly had in plan.

Her eyes widened momentarily as his free arm reached up to pat a section of his chest that she had struck earlier. There were a series of claw marks that slashed through a ballistics vest that he had worn under his jacket. His breathing was labored, coming out in short uneven breaths that echoed out with the laughing fires that were slowly dying down.

However, no matter how exhausted he was, Miltia's eyes were locked onto the damaged clothes of the man. They should have been impossible to damage so heavily so long as Aura protected the user. Melanie saw this too, through their shared vision, and immediately pounced on the madman, intending to end this madness.

Then he reached into his jacket, pulling out a packet of some sort. Miltia barely had a moment to comprehend what exactly it was before he threw it, and a blast of noise and force rang through her connection to Melanie. Her ears burned as her Aura strained to prevent the blast from shattering her hearing.

One of the side effects of their shared perception was that it was possible to impair the two of them if there was sufficient disorientation. And there was also the fact that whatever Melanie felt, so too did Miltia.

Melanie was currently in _pain_.

"Mel!" Miltia yelled out in worry, but was drowned out in another blast of noise and force.

Her eyes were blinking back stars when she found that the madman had reappeared. However, he was right in front of her, sword raised high above his head.

Miltia reacted on instinct, stabbing forwards with both of her claws in a slight panic. Her opponent stepped past one claw, but failed to dodge the other.

His Aura should have blocked the claw. Instead, she felt the familiar feel of flesh parting under her strength. Her ears itched as he muffled a cry of pain, giving a dull roar in favor of screaming. He was bleeding now with her red claws goring their way through his left arm.

Miltia barely had time to acknowledge the fact that his Aura had changed from light green to red. Red was supposed to be her Aura. Her thoughts were halted as an intense pain crippled her mind. His sword had slammed into her floating ribs with a sickening crack that echoed in unison with the growing fires.

She flew through the air from the force behind the blow. One of the pillars, that bordered the dance floor, jarred her flight, cratering with her sudden stop and sending shattered shards of glass to bounce off her Aura.

Miltia fell to the ground with a ungraceful flop, fits of coughs spasming through her body as she tried to gather more air. Her ribs were burning in agony, and she knew well enough that the madman had just broken at least a couple of them. She was no longer moving without risking to send herself into another crippling wave of pain.

Her Aura was trying desperately to repair the damage.

Miltia's thoughts were half dealing with the pain, and half worrying about Melanie. However, she dragged enough of herself to realize that her Aura was still there. Every breath was causing lances of torture to dance along her side, but she still had half the mind to realize that she still somehow had Aura. That he had just attacked straight past her Aura!

"Mil!" Melanie's voice broke through the blinds of pain, and Miltia saw her sister standing up on unsteady feet. The pain she was feeling was echoing through their link. Then both of their attention turned back to the instigator who was currently bandaging his bleeding arm with a roll of gauze that had probably come from that jacket.

"You bastard!" Miltia felt a little warm knowing that her sister cared about her enough to spit so much anger in her voice.

She watched as Melanie and her white dressed self launched at the madman, startling him with a series of blinding kicks. He was forced to retreat while barely blocking her hits, and not doing much but watch as her sister drove him into a corner.

Screeches of steel echoed as their weapons clashed in symphonies of metal. He blocked and parried with a hurried fervor, but was only blindsided as Melanie had stopped holding back. Her hips flipped with an odd bounce, and her legs shot up to attack him in a flurry of quick strikes.

Miltia watched as several of her sister's heels scored lines of red onto his form, _bleeding _him for all the pain that she felt. He was slowing down, and Melanie was still speeding up. Everything ended very anti-climatically after a particularly nasty high kick connected with the side of his face, eliciting a scream of pain. His Aura was light green then.

A sort of smug confidence radiated off of the both of them as he was driven further and further to some of the more intact walls of The Club until his back was pressed against the solid brick. He was bleeding from all the wounds that marred him; especially the deep wound to his face from before, but mercy was not given by her sister. Melanie gave no quarter, and constantly shifted her lead leg to change up her attacks so that he wouldn't be able to retaliate.

Both of them didn't expect for him to fall straight to the ground in what they hoped was unconsciousness. However, they didn't think that he would grab onto one of Melanie's ankles. Neither did they expect the massive explosion that burst their eardrums in screaming pain and tore down the entire wall opposite of the first explosion, evening out the destruction across the whole building. Miltia felt her ears pop from the sheer pain that echoed back through the link with her sister.

Melanie was yelling somewhere between the laughing flames and falling masonry. Miltia didn't know what exactly happened, but there were a series of quick pops of pain that echoed through the link before something hard _slammed _into her sister's gut. She flew out from the cloud of smoke that kicked up from the explosion, carving a path through the gas. Finally, Melanie crashed into the floor with a painful thump, bouncing off the hard ground with a groan.

The madman was upon her in seconds. His strides were unimpeded by the massive explosions, and all the damage that Miltia could see that those caused were small trails of blood leaking from his ears. Those were already healed by the time he reached her prone sister.

As if watching a horror film, she could only watch as it stood over her sister's body with a sort of calculative calm, and then shattered that by slamming a boot directly into her sister's stomach. Pain flared through the bond that connected them despite Miltia still feeling Aura trickle in from her sister.

He _shouldn't _have been able to cut through Aura like it wasn't there.

Miltia's eyes watered from watching as the bond that connected them fell blank. She knew her sister was just unconscious, but simply watching with blurry eyes made it so that she couldn't even see the rise and fall of Melanie's chest.

Then the _monster _in the form of a boy turned her way. She suddenly noticed that there were now more cuts along his form. Blood trickled from where her sister's bladed heels dug particularly deep furrows into him, and one was probably the cause of his sudden aggression: a cut that tore through his mask, just barely missing his left eye and dragging a line into his sideburn.

"P-please…" Miltia whispered to the monster, hoping to appease it. "Don't hurt my sister…"

The monster froze long enough for her to feel the building tension. Then, in an action that startled her, he nodded briefly.

His voice was honeyed gravel, coarse yet sweet. "I am... sorry."

Miltia didn't know what to say, but she didn't need to as her pain finally got the best of her. She fell into the blissful realm of dreams where monsters never apologized. Her thoughts were only on the fact that Junior's crew, as of today, were done in by a rapier wasp's nest that they shouldn't have kicked.

-x-

I was exhausted. My limbs barely had the energy to move, and it was only the soft warmth of Aura that kept me going on. Blood was beginning to soak into my costume that those twins had absolutely torn into.

There were some close calls in the fight. Like when I found some loopholes in the whole Aura thing, and it was only with great prejudice that I only got off with a couple minor and two major wounds from learning that. The wounds on my body could attest to that fact.

However, I miraculously won in the end. I finally bested three users of Aura with only myself to account for. Honestly, I am surprised that everything worked out as it did. Even if I felt I had been a tad too brutal in the final attacks, but I was really too angry when that white dressed girl slashed my face with her heels.

My mom was going to _kill _me if it scarred.

If there was one thing that I should take away from this fight, then it was that I needed to acquire Aura somehow. The resource was something that I felt would be around for most of my fights. As my dad always said 'if you're enemy has it, then make sure you have it as well'.

Well, my dad didn't really say that, but, as an impressionable toddler, I think most things I heard my dad say could mean something else. Still, Aura was useful enough as I could feel the smaller of my cuts closing up with the help of it, and the worst of my wounds had already stopped bleeding. Though, the blood helped in the factor of intimidation against Junior.

His breathing was hard as he watched me stalk closer. I could practically _smell _his fear as I squatted down next to him, fires burning behind me. Junior was too exhausted to even move now, and if it wasn't for Aura, then I too would be a wreck like him. Though, as I grew closer his fear slowly twisted to anger that was easily visible on his face.

However, the only thing I felt was a real sense of confidence and pride at taking down these villains. "Now, Junior, how about we get back to that deal, huh?"

"Go die in hell." Junior spat back venomously.

Frowning as I wiped his spittle off my mask, I snapped my fingers. There really was no need, but it served to drag the angry man's attention to a smaller explosion that bored into a section of the still-standing wall.

The building shuddered as a whole chunk of it broke under the strain of its own weight no longer held by anything beneath it. I tried not to flinch as It crashed with an echoing thud and stirred up another cloud of dust. Junior's jaw clenched at the casual destruction.

"Are you feeling up talking now?" I asked again, shaken up inside at how much damage I was causing. Internally, I hoped that there wouldn't be anyone innocent nearby. "I'd rather not tear down this place." I added in truthfully.

"You…"Junior accused, his face paling. "You're _not _that kid. He was just a civilian from a retired Huntsman's home. There was no mention of training or awakened Aura… Wh- who are you?"

I blinked at his words. _'Wow, he knows quite a bit. That's not good...'_ I thought fearfully. However, I had already come on too strong when I wanted him to removing information on my family. Right now he was just in shock, but when that wears off he might put two and two together.

So, I needed to bluff my way out of here. "Who I am doesn't really matter, Junior. I just don't like getting innocents caught up in my business, _and _you have directly incensed my anger." I felt like I separated myself from my family enough, so I needed to bring it back that Jaune and I are not the same person. "Now, here's the terms that we're going to set, so all this," I gestured around. "Doesn't happen again, okay?"

Junior nodded apprehensively as I continued. "First, you're to tell, to anyone who you gave information to, that Jaune Arc had nothing to do with me. Second, You're going to erase any information you have on the Arcs as compensation for dragging them into this. And lastly," I paused, unsure what exactly I wanted. My eyes peered through the veil of smoke to find a rather nice Dust car parked in one of the garages nearby. It was lucky to not get caught up in any explosions. "Is that your car?"

Junior looked over to the nicer car that was parked outside. He nodded slowly as I smiled at him under my mask. "I'll take that, too."

"Maybe you can take one of the other cars? There are plent-"

Flashes of red and blue interrupted Junior from denying my last requirement, and his voice was cut off by sirens that echoed throughout the caving building. Panicking a little I hurriedly found Junior's keys, and only paused to look at Junior for a second.

"You know to keep quiet about me, right?" I made a show of tapping the hilt of my sword. It wasn't like I would actually do anything reprehensible, but if it worked to scare him, then I was willing to do it.

From how Junior nodded, I could tell that I got my message thoroughly carved into him.

Then I was gone, running through one of the holes I created on my way to my new ride. I should have expected to find myself face to face with several very confused police officers. It was with a little awkward when all the policemen present stared at me as I froze on principle. The sounds of several pistols leveling my way rang out the next second, and I briefly wondered if I had to run away from the police now.

"Hands up!" A couple of them yelled, and I complied out of dull confusion.

When one of the more braver ones advanced on me with the intent of placing handcuffs on me, I realized that this didn't really look too good. Swallowing a wad of saliva, and shutting down my jittering fears, I made a choice that would save my life.

I was _not _getting arrested. _'Mom would definitely kill you then, Juane.'_

So I made what could be the coward's decision. I blew some of the last of my Dust, engulfing another side of The Club in a blast of force and noise. All the policemen ducked by reflex at the random explosions, and I took the chance to run straight towards what was now my car.

A couple of bullets impacted futilely against the Aura I still parasitized, and glanced off my new car, digging holes into the sleek, black finish. However, I could care less about that now as I quickly opened the door.

I slid into the driver's seat, happy that I now had a car to call my own. Still, I had no idea why my family forbid me from driving in the first place?

The car roared as I made my getaway from what was most likely a high-priority crime scene.

-x-

The police weren't the most recognized place in Vale, Chief Vert knew. He had spent his time dealing with all the shit that came with the job, and it was safe to say that he had seen a thing or two. However, there always came times when a new type of idiot decided to live in his city.

Glaring at the five officers who led the response to a series of bombings on one of the bars in the Eastern parts of Vale. They were all shaking as if they had been a direct witness to one of the Reds' raids.

"So let me get this straight." Police Chief Vert pressed a steady hand on his throbbing temples. "You lost a guy in a costume when he drove his car off of two whole overpasses, went down an alleyway that just barely fit his car, blew through several red lights and changed highways by driving off them?"

"And he _strictly _drove in the wrong lane, sir." One of the shaking men added.

"I don't think I saw him break _once_…" Another said with a shudder.

"Yes, I get that, and I realize that most of the Bullheads that we have were out doing other things." Vert answered with a calm rage. "But that doesn't excuse you from missing a suspect in what amounts to a huge terrorist scandal! I'm already having to filter the news from the Reds, and I don't want panic spreading from someone who thinks it's okay to blow up a building! Do you want the public starting to feel unsafe, dragging a horde of hungry Grimm to us?"

"No, sir!" All five saluted.

However, one particularly brave man stood up to attention, and turned his eyes down from Vert's impressive girth. The chief had been a retired Huntsman, and yet still invoke a sort of terror that was hard to match. "There's evidence that the place hit was one of the Junior- err, the Infromation Broker's hideouts. Several of the people we captured inside also attested to this. We don't have much to go on besides a couple of his men apologizing for angering 'the Vigilante'." He finished with air quotes.

"And?" Chief Vert asked.

"Well, I mean, maybe we should calmly ask for him to come in? We can say that a well-meaning Huntsman took out one of the gangs in the street, and you know how the press would eat up any hero stories they hear." The same police officer suggested.

"Yes, and while we're at it why don't we invite any Huntsman-in-Training to take the law into their own hands." Vert said sarcastically before slamming a hand into his desk, shocking everyone back into feared attention. "This is a _serious _matter! You don't want _kids _who are trained to fight monsters busting down places just because they think it's the right thing to do! That just causes more chaos."

"Then what should we do, sir?" The same brave officer asked, his voice no longer confident.

Chief Vert frowned for a second. "I want this 'Vigilante' caught before something happens that we can't control. And I want it done yesterday!"

The police scrambled into motion as a new element was introduced to the streets.

And no one knew what would happen next.

-x-

_This is mainly a reactionary chapter to display some of the thoughts on Jaune from other's perspectives. I like it, but do y'all want more of this? I mean, I have more planned, but if more people just want first person POV I can trim down on the unneeded ones. _

_Now, I want to stress the differences in Jaune's little destruction of the Club and Yang's. They aren't the same, and the implications behind his actions as well as threats have much different stigmas. Things'll be different that what you'd expect, I can assure you. _

_Going onto the twins, we didn't really see much of them in the show from what I recall, so I kinda played it to something I felt was right. They have a little co-dependent relationship going on that might be a tad unhealthy, and their Semblances are fit to match that. Of course, one of them was just to introduce the idea of Aura into Jaune. Aura that he will gain at one point (I have a specific scene planned out for then). _

_Onto other things, Jaune's costume is a little oddly colored, but I can change that easily. I'm not too fashion savvy, and didn't really look into anything other than some practicality when I thought it up. Though, I guess I can change it as I go till its more a fit to Jaune. _

_Also, also, before I go, Proliferating Procrastination: that's kinda what I thought about as I wrote it, but I just feel that those themes would be there regardless of what I was going for. And yes, I like the idea that Semblances change based upon personality *hint hint wink wink* Of course, I'm not going to be switching Semblances willy nilly, but for massive changes in character, they might just have something stick. _

_As always, Enjoy!_


	7. Chapter 7

****Disclaimer:**** I do not own RWBY or any of its franchise.

A helpful guide incase you get confused:  
"Dialogue."  
__'Thoughts.'  
[Powers?]__

-x-

Chapter 7 - Making Enemies is Hard

The door shut behind me unceremoniously as I struggled to plant my feet in a way that would assure that I didn't eat by floorboards. My whole body was a bruise, and simply breathing made my chest tremble. Every step I took closer to my bed, a shudder of pain wracked my screaming muscles.

I had been expecting some decrease in abilities as I drove out of range of the parasitized Aura, but the sheer magnitude of which it did was something I was wholly unprepared for. Luckily, I was a good enough driver to not get into a crash as my body went into tremors of shock from the pain.

The ribs that I had broken not long ago were once again back in pieces. Blackened bruises dotted my sides along with cuts ranging from small annoyances to deep gashes that I was certain would scar. My inexperience had nearly gotten me killed, too, and a constant, agonizing sting next to my left eye clued me in on the fact that I nearly lost an eye tonight.

__I nearly lost an eye… __

That thought sobered me up to the horrors of just what had happened, and the lengths of which I went through to end it all. I desperately searched for a distraction to ward my mind off of the spiraling thoughts of terror that plagued me.

My clear blues looked up to find the ruin that was my apartment. Everything was still as broken and out of place as I left it, and I felt a threatening urge to just go and try to fix it. However, my body continued in its one-sided protest, as I eventually made my way to my bathroom that had remained relatively unscathed by the intense firefight a night prior.

Starting up a nice warm bath, I pulled on a nearby, comforting warmth that always was there.

__[Liquid contact based accelerated healing. Minor micro-hydrokinesis.]__

The familiar sensation of power and knowledge filled my head as I leaned into the bath. My wounds were itching as the power took hold, and the effects replicated themselves over my body. Most of the smallest scratches were already gone by the time that looked over them a couple seconds later.

The more painful and deadly wounds, like the large claw-shaped gash in my left arm, were slowly on their way to extensive scar tissue. I rotated my arm in an attempt to figure out if my wounds had hindered it in any way, but, other than the intense pain, there wasn't anything wrong with moving it.

A sigh of relief passed over me as I realized that all my injuries, despite how grisly they seemed, didn't appear to impair me. That, despite my horrible nights, I still would be able to continue to do exactly what brought me into this mess.

Many things were still swirling in the slush that was my thoughts. What exactly was Aura? There were definitely more people with it, but why do they keep it hidden? What other aspects to Aura are there? There was also the fact that nearly everyone who I fought, and had a power, also had Aura.

That meant that I needed to find a way to get this resource as well… And I was already planning on my next act of altruism by trying to get Aura...

"Ow," I bemoaned, feeling the healing waters wrap me in a comfortable embrace. "Why am I like this?"

I already had the answer, though. There was just the feeling of questioning myself out loud that felt natural to me, but, internally, I already knew that no matter how hard I thought about it: Jaune Arc was __born __to be a hero.

I wanted to do good. I wanted to be like those heroes in the story books. I wanted desperately to leave my mark on this world that was so stained in despair.

Most of all, though, I __hoped __my parents would be proud in their son.

-x-

Waking up in the morning was something I did purely out of habit. If I didn't get up early, then I would have to prepare my ears for the worry-filled rant that my mom would most assuredly spout. I would be lucky if that only lasted less than a few hours.

That being said, I was no stranger to waking up feeling like something that was close to passing out back to the land of dreams. In fact, I would have preferred to do just that if it wasn't for one particular worry.

There were two warmths __in__ my apartment.

Two very familiar powers called out to me from my living room, and I was forced to wretch myself to some semblance of awareness as falling back asleep now wouldn't be productive for my health. I was in the process of locating both of my weapons when a small head of pink and brown hair poked into my doorway. Mismatched eyes met my own, and the owner gave me the most innocent of smiles before pointing over to my closet.

Sitting on the door was Vengeance, untouched and unmarred. My sword looked as perfect as the last memory of when I cleaned it for the night. Instantly, I reached for Neo's power, knowing that this could full well be an illusion.

__[Semi-physical glass-based illusions. Illusion oriented spacial awareness.]__

When nothing showed up in my vision, I admit, I blanked a bit. Here was someone who presumably was an assassin that was out for me. It didn't help anyone's case that the same man who she worked for was currently in my place as well.

Wait, what exactly was he even doing? I felt his power, and noted that it was primarily in my kitchen. However, my kitchen was a mess, and what exactly were those clinking noises every so often?

I didn't ignore Neo, either. The diminutive girl was still watching me from the door, too. A creepy smile was plastered on her face, and I had no idea what inane things could be going on in her head. However, as I got out of bed, I felt that I wanted to know just exactly why these two criminals were in my apartment.

Neo was silent as she happily, or at least as happy as she probably was, skipped out of my bedroom door to my living room, motioning for me to follow. Reluctantly, I left Vengeance back in my room as I noticed that Neo had hung up her weaponized umbrella on a coat rack that stood next to my door. There were also a coat and cane that hung limply on the article.

__And __my apartment was cleaned.

"What…" I gaped at the sight of what seemed like a completely new apartment.

A couple rugs matted the floor to hide what I knew were broken pieces and bullet holes. There was a new leather couch that took up what was once my lead laden pile of ripped up furniture. All the papers and various bits of destroyed material was gathered neatly into trash bags that sat next to the door, expecting someone to take them out. Even a new television was playing something about a reckless driver in a police chase.

My kitchen was another shock that I could safely say woke me up completely. Shining new countertops replaced my destroyed ones, and my wooden cabinets were refurbished to near perfection from their once shattered remains fit with appliances that looked brand new. Even my once toppled fridge was righted and fixed.

If I didn't see the depressions of bullet holes in the walls, then I would have thought that I had suddenly moved. Still, the extreme makeover, while great, was slightly disconcerting in the fact that I had slept while people I didn't know had worked on my place without my knowledge.

There was also the fact that Roman Torchwick was currently making coffee in a professional looking machine currently sitting on my new counter.

The orange haired man, dressed in a pair of dark slacks and buttoned down shirt, turned my way from his place. His hair was swept away from his green eyes, and a bowler hat clung snugly to his head. He smiled wryly at me.

"Hey, how do you like your coffee, kid?" He asked, completely at ease inside my own home.

"What are you doing here?" I answered back. There wasn't really a fight that was about to happen, and I quite liked when my apartment wasn't used as a battle ground. As such, I decided that I needed to handle this diplomatically.

Or as diplomatic as you can get with a miniature assassin and a narcissistic kleptomaniac.

He didn't even flinch at my question, and just returned to the whirring coffee maker. "You seem like you'd be a cappuccino guy, but I have been known to be wrong before. Specifically with you, kid. You've been nothing but surprises… And, quite frankly, I don't really like surprises."

I tensed at his words, and nearly threw a punch as he set down a cup of steaming liquid in front of me. It was a cappuccino. Thick, fluffy and harmless milk steamed in the small cup with edges of dark, coffee stained, ridges toasting the outer white in a way that I could only declare was like a delicious looking marshmallow. Honestly, I was kind of thrown off out of everything that was going on as the master thief pulled up a chair and sat down, gesturing to a similar one nearby.

"Look, kid, no hard feelings about all this." Roman started, holding his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I know Junior's boys through and through. They're wonderful henchmen when you just need some extra hands to carry your spoils, but when dealing with delicate procedures…" He waved a hand around my new apartment. "They __can __get a little… overzealous."

I frowned at his words. "You did this." I accused.

"I did." Roman nodded with a complacent smile. "It's the least I could do for a partner in crime."

"What?" I stumbled a bit as my brain tried to comprehend what I just heard. "No, um, what?"

Roman didn't seem to care much for my confusion, and just pulled out a remote before pointing it at the television and turning the volume up. "See that, kid." He pointed to the oddly familiar high speed chase being highlighted on the news. "That was gold right there. Impressive work for some do-gooder like yourself, but that's not really why I'm here. Its why Neo's here, but don't bother with her."

I digested his words, turning to face the girl who had gotten bored and was now bouncing on the couch. She smiled my way, pointing at the cars on the television and making gestures for explosions. I really didn't want to know what she meant.

Turning my attention back to the thief in my apartment, I realized that he wanted something. From the time he tried to rope Junior into dragging me by force, and now where he placidly talked to me. All of his gestures were nonthreatening. That meant that he wanted me for something, but had only realized that I wouldn't be as easy to bend as he first thought.

Fixing my apartment, making coffee, being nice and not carrying their weapons. All of this was a front for what he really wanted. I wasn't some kid anymore; these past few days had matured me enough to understand that there was some sort of power play at work here, and if I let him take control of the conversation, I might even lose out on what was even going on.

As such, I finally took my seat across from him, a countertop between us. "What do you want, Roman?" I asked as seriously as possible.

The change in my attitude seemed to strike a few generous cords with the man. His smile widened into something less mischievous and his eyes glinted within the lights. "There's the backbone I expected from you. Tell me, blondie -can I call you blondie?" I shook my head as a clear denial. "Alright well, blondie, what do you think you're going to do with Junior's territory that you have just commandeered?"

I blinked, not really sure if I wanted to punch him for ignoring me or listen to his important words. "I'm sorry, what do you mean?"

"Of course you didn't know." Roman laughed. "Think of it this way... say I just went and made one of the major gangs disband, and did that in __one night __no less, what do you think everyone else would do? The very same gangs that have sunk their corruption into the once innocent councils of Vale. The very same people who have __killed __just to keep their purposeless thrones. Their greed and pride for holding their positions since the last great war eighty or so years ago has only __stained __them in stagnancy, and you have just uprooted one of linchpins that hold up Vale's criminal underworld. What would they do?"

Internally, I gulped heavily from the grandiose speech before me. I was thrown off foot from his words, and I felt that maybe I had done something that I wasn't supposed to. "Uh, wouldn't they fear you?" I asked apprehensively.

Roman nodded slightly. "Right, they would fear you, but they would also test you. After all, Junior proves that they can take out an organization by taking care of the leader." Before I could ask, he already had an answer ready. "It'll start small. Minor inconveniences here and there to check if you will actually uphold any order on the territory you took. Then, when you don't act, they'll escalate. Soon it'll be robberies, drive-bys, pushing schemes where they send their grunts onto the free land and, before you know it, they'll just assimilate your territory as their own."

My features twisted with understanding. What he was saying was logical progression, but that only pertained to me if I wanted to be a gang. Even beginning to consider his words would just mean that I was trying to stake my own claim on the city of Vale.

I wasn't some two-bit criminal, too. Or a criminal at all for that matter.

"I think you're mistaken, __Roman__." I applied emphasis to his name. He was making a power play by coming to my own living quarters; saying that they know who I am and where I live. While I didn't have the same leverage, I still had the threat of explosive escalation as evidenced by last night. Roman was probably here genially because he couldn't get to me otherwise. "I don't own Junior's territory, nor do I have any want for it. You said it yourself, he's done. I'm not going to play king of the hill with these criminals either, so you can find someone else to look into."

Roman pursed his lips in thought. My words definitely put him off his scheme to rope me in on whatever he planned, but I had no idea how he would respond. Instinctively, I reached to find Rouge's power somewhere in my range only to pale as I noticed that he was nowhere to be found within two kilometers of me.

This was… while not good, not as horrible as it could be. Fighting was straight out when I thought about it. These two, based on my own luck, probably had Aura, and the training to make those twins from last night look like chumps.

__'Yeah,'__ I thought to myself. __'A nonviolent resolution is definitely the best option. Still recovering from last night, as well.'' __

Still, to be safe, I pulled on Roman's power just in case the situation turned bad.

__[Escape oriented path recognition. Enhanced dexterity.]__

I was beginning to recognize that most powers that had a mental aspect to it were rather powerful in their own right. Rouge's own precognition was something out of fantasy with how it utilized the opponent's own tells to plot their future actions in real time.

Roman's power worked on similar wavelengths. It effectively brought all __known __information about the environment, enemies, allies and possible weapons, and put all that through a complex process of figuring out the best ways to run away. Like how it was currently telling me that I had a chance of running by simply saying that I wanted nothing to do with Neo or him.

It was as odd as Rouge's power as it simply told me what I needed to do to accomplish my desired goal so long as that goal pertained to a set limitation. All in all, it let me know that neither Roman nor Neo had any intention to stop me should I try to run.

So, out of all the bad ideas I've had these past hectic days, I decided to listen to a dangerous criminal against my better judgement.

Roman also picked the perfect time to respond as I had just gotten my thoughts together. "Right, I keep forgetting you're a goodie goodie." He scowled like those words were sour on his tongue. "Fine, fine, let's get down to it; you're not going to budge based on your weird moral agenda. I still have a need for you as you have technically demolished my working partner."

"I refuse." I answered immediately.

"Look, kid, I get that you're a badass who can handle himself, but taking down Junior is much different than say taking down the Union." Roman countered like he knew exactly what I was going to say. "Neo and I here tracked you down __easily__, and so did Junior. Let it be said that he's not known for being the best at finding people despite his work as an informant. However, he found you, as easily as us, might I add. It barely took a few minutes to find you, __and __everything about you."

I really didn't like where he was going. "What are you getting at?" I asked, my voice now much quieter than I thought.

"I have taken the time and energy to get a guy I know encrypt your information on the CCT signals as a gesture of goodwill. An encryption that I can extend in the hopes that I can get your assistance in matters pertaining to the territory that you have suddenly acquired." Roman started, drawing up a series numbers on his Scroll. Most of them were in the six digits. "See this? These are the numbers we can be making if you help. I'm not going to lie, you taking out Junior from the equation __really __didn't help me. Sending him half brutalized with a supposed death threat to Vacuo, while amusing, only hurts my own image. If all that lien isn't up your alley, then I have a proposition for you that I know will soothe your heroic bone."

I didn't really know what to say. The fact that Junior was traumatized from my visit was only second to the fact that he had somehow escaped, but that more important matter was that I was considering Roman's words. It might be because he took the time to protect my identity, but I resigned myself to listen to the rest of his offer as I waved for him to continue.

"Wonderful," the man cheered in monotone. "I want the territory you're most certainly not going to use, and I want a sort of truce between us. I can give you information on the whereabouts of certain gangs in the Vale that are as unsavory as they are unneeded. You get to nab the perps, and I get to finally take a piece of the cake for myself. A win-win, don't you think?"

"I…" I thought about it. The whole thing was a good offer, and I really needed to get more in the way of information other than looking up different news articles. However, doing this would inadvertently make it so that I was firmly tied to a villain. There was also the fact that something within me rebelled getting help from others.

__'I've been doing fine on my own...'__ My thoughts said.__'Jaune Arc can do this on his own.'__

After a couple minutes of deliberate silence, I answered, "I refuse."

The master thief looked at me for a second before heaving a sigh. "I see." He said, standing up. I tensed as he moved, but relaxed as the older man made no move to attack. "I like to think of myself as a gentleman, so don't worry about me involving your family in anything. The rest of the gangs, however…" He didn't need to finish as he looked at me seriously. We both knew the unneeded answer. "With your showing of how you handle things, I am a __little __reluctant to not get a truce out of you, but I get that you're really not going to budge on the matter. Let me tell you this, blondie, there are plenty of monsters out there that fighting alone will just be suicide."

He walked over to the coat rack next to the door, slung his white jacket on and hung the handle of his cane on his forearm. Tipping his hat, he smiled again. "Try not to blow up my place, and I'll do the same for you, blondie. Still, as an upstanding criminal like myself, I'm also obligated to say that should I see you again I'll be trying to brain you with my cane."

I blanked at the nonchalant threat that he just included on his words, and paused as I found Neo staring at me from the doorway. Her umbrella was also laying placidly on her shoulder, and a Scroll was dancing in her hands. She fiddled with it for a few seconds before tossing it to me.

Fumbling with the tossed piece of technology, I finally stabilized it only to find the two of them shutting the door without another word. I looked down to the Scroll and noticed that it had a very familiar broken screen. A note's file was open with the words 'I like your driving -Neopolitan.' and a number scrawled in it.

__'Nope! This is just asking for trouble!'__ I instantly screamed in my head, closing the file, and realized that I just spent my morning talking with two dangerous criminals about whether I would join them.

I leaned back in my fancy repaired apartment, feeling the soreness from yesterday catch up with how exhausted I felt currently. The couch was definitely a major upgrade from my last one. My arm placed itself over my tired eyes as I sighed aloud.

"Great… can this get any weirder?" I asked, hoping that I didn't jinx myself.

When no one answered to my rhetorical question I stood up and stretched. I still needed to look into whatever Aura was, and maybe look into those lessons that Rouge had offered before.

Flipping through my phone I found the contacts of both Yatsuhashi and Velvet, the two Beacon prospects that I had met before. A thought came to me as I remembered getting out matched by those twins form before. It was a lightbulb moment as I realized that maybe they wouldn't be adverse to helping me out.

"But first." I said to my empty place, and carefully took the now cold cappuccino in my hands. There was only a couple seconds of hesitation as to whether Roman would have poisoned it or not. Then I had downed the delicious drink the next second.

The man may wear what I knew was eyeliner, and is perhaps a very dangerous criminal, but let it be said, he makes a great coffee.

-x-

_A smaller chapter than usual, but one that was needed nonetheless. Junior skipping town might seem a little convoluted, though, I hope I did a convincing job at selling it. It was mainly to get the plot moving towards the main threat of this first act, the Reds. I'll try to sell their OC-ness, but I am prone to making mistakes. if you see any, make sure to tell me. _

_As always, Enjoy!_


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY or any of its franchise.

A helpful guide incase you get confused:  
"Dialogue."  
_'Thoughts.'  
[Powers?]_

-x-

Chapter 8 - Laws are Made to be Followed

A bell jingled over me as I carefully pushed the door open. Stepping inside, I found myself in the right place as I glanced at the walls full of books. Isles of more books a little below eye level were strewn throughout the place with little signs labeling which genre they were.

"Welcome to Tuskon's Book Trade! Home to every book under the sun!" A jovial voice announced from behind the front counter. "Do you need help looking for anything?"

I blinked at the man. He was large enough that I wondered how I missed him in the first place, and the fact that he had no warmth apparent to my senses also made his size quite weird. A fact that had been connecting in my head was that the more fit members of society normally had a warmth, or power, that I could sense.

Still, I didn't think more on why that was as I looked over the man. A fairly middle aged shopkeeper with clean cropped, black hair and deep sideburns that traveled along his jaw to the outer fringes of his chin. Light hazel eyes watched me, crinkling as a welcoming smile spread on the man's face.

He wore a short sleeved shirt underneath another short sleeved zipper shirt of dark brown. His hairy arms were crossed in a way that hid his fingers on his sides, but I paid it no mind as my attention was focused on the fact that his forearms were huge. Larger than some of the people who I had seen in the gym regularly.

Idly, I felt as if I had stared too long. After my talk with Roman, and his explanation about how I was now someone of interest, I naturally tended to sizing everyone up in case they turned out to be enemies.

_'You're going crazy if you keep suspecting everyone is after you…' _I joked internally. It was one thing to be cautious, but now I was even making sure that even kind shopkeepers were dangerous individuals.

With a small cough, I gave the man a smile of my own. "Sorry about my slow response. I, uh, am looking for anything in Aura." I answered him finally.

"Aura, huh?" The shopkeeper echoed. "I think I have a couple manuals in the back, _but_," He paused to look at me up and down, eyes slowing slightly on the thin scar that curled along the left side of my face. I was sure that my mom was going to kill me, but that scar pretty much refused to go away. "No offense, but I need to see a Huntsman license or a unlocked Aura permit."

I coughed awkwardly in my hand, "Um, how about we skip that?"

"No can do, kid." The man didn't even falter in his denial. "There are laws against giving Aura manuals to unlicensed people. I recommend if you have Aura that you get registered at the nearest Beacon office; they have people who can handle these sorts of things." He frowned at me, his thick sideburns curling with his features. "If you're thinking of doing something illegal, then I ask you not to ask any other places. _I_ am willing to overlook your questions, but other places will just call the police when they go to 'get' your books."

I blanched at the information, appalled at the fact that simply asking for a book can get me arrested. "I…" I felt myself stuttering, "I didn't know."

The man looked a little shocked at my admission for a second; his once stern expression falling into something of pity. "Hey, it's okay, kid. Normal civvies are not supposed to know how to get Aura else everyone would be trying to get their hands on it."

"What?" I was once again shocked by his admission. People were actually hiding such a useful resource? The applications of healing alone would be a miracle to the hospitals around the city being the first thing that came to mind. "Why would they hide it?"

"Ah, kid." The shopkeeper just rubbed the back of his head, a little embarrassed. "Well, a lot of places have to follow several penal codes set in place by the Valian council. Most of it is to prevent the spread of panic, and other types of emotions that could send the city into a mass of negative intent. With Grimm being attracted to rampant, negative emotions, places like mine are forbidden from selling or offering certain things. You following?"

I nodded slowly. Grimm were a constant threat to humanity, and them being attracted to whenever people felt sad, angry or were in fear didn't make it any easier for the four Kingdoms to manage them. It was a miracle when a town expanded from their walls for a reason.

The man just looked at me for a second before continuing with a sigh, "Kid, what I'm going to tell you shouldn't be spread around, got it?" His face was all seriousness as I nodded once more. "Alright, well, people with their Aura's unlocked are basically beacons for Grimm even if they're not feeling too bad. One or three in one place is not horribly bad -they still attract their fair share of them, but when you scale that up to _cities_, the Grimm are basically set on a warpath to any place with lots of unlocked Aura users."

I balked as the image of thousands of bloodthirsty monsters set on a crazed stampede towards my home was shocked into my mind as I tried to comprehend what he was saying. If what he was saying was true, and that all these powers were, in fact, Aura users, then that meant Vale _should _be under constant Grimm attacks. It was a miracle that there was never any reports of the Grimm constantly besieging the walls of Vale due to its natural barriers.

With a steep bulwark of mountains to the southeast and a warding presence of shallow waters to the northwest, Vale was one of the safer kingdoms of the four. There were _supposedly _a very low amount of Grimm attacks that were always successfully warded off with contemptuous ease.

And, now that I had delved into a life of -sort of- vigilantism, I was beginning to wonder just how much was actually being told to us.

Slowly, I wet my dry lips as I asked, "Why are you telling me this?"

"Its nothing noble, kid, I've seen people like you hearing of all the wonders of Aura, and wanting to use it for something like impressing a girl or…" He nods to the scar on my face. "Revenge or whatever. Some of them give up after I simply tell them no, but others end up trying everything only to end up getting pressed into a gang because they can now shrug off bullets and punch people's lights out with a few nonchalant blows. I'm telling you now because I've seen that look of determination many times before; if I let you go out, then you'd try to find a way despite my previous warnings of getting arrested. Better you know not to rather than let you be stupid."

"Oh…" I whispered, wondering just how many people were press ganged into the places that I was going to hit. "Then… then why doesn't everyone know what Aura does? Wouldn't that stop them from trying to getting it?"

The man just gave me a flat look that spoke volumes before he even opened his mouth. "Huntsmen use Aura, kid. Everyone knows that as fact with the Vytal Festival every two years. How _safe _would you feel if the supposed 'saviors of mankind and slayers of Grimm' were actually found to be one of the largest reasons that Grimm are drawn to cities and towns?"

I blanked as the new information hit me like a ton of bricks. His words, while easy to understand, were horribly hard to swallow. If people felt that the people who protected them were one of the main causes of said attacks, then it wasn't a stretch of the imagination to understand that there would be chaos. Some people were just not reasonable when the time comes, and if the fingers start pointing to the Huntsmen, there would be blood.

And there would be Grimm.

"You catching up, kid?" The man said to me, giving me another look of pity. He looked genuinely sorry for not helping me as well as shoving all this information onto me. "Don't go all depressed on me, kid. You seem old enough to know what's right and wrong, but try not to go spreading that around, please. Best to keep some secrets to yourself, you know."

"Ah… right." I stalled, mind numb from the bomb that had just been dropped. There must've been some shocked expression on my face as the man patted me carefully on the shoulder.

"Hey, uh, you alright there?" My attention snapped back into place as I looked towards him. There was a sheepish smile on his face. "Sorry if I told you something you didn't need to know…"

"No," I interrupted. "No, it's fine. I rather know now than to actually attempt something I might regret."

Slowly, I felt my wits come back to me. The fact that Huntsmen, the _heroes_ of the world, were being selectively targeted by the monsters of darkness was only a small afterthought.

They had such a dangerous condition, and yet they still fought to keep us all safe. Bearing the weight of nations on their shoulders while also knowing that you might attract the killers to the people you were protecting was a burden I felt could only go to the strongest of individuals.

And the fact that some people used Aura for their own selfish wishes was something that now grated me even more. They were a festering wound that spread blood in the water to attract hungry sharks, yet they still tried to achieve their own desires despite that. Something in me snarled at the inconsiderate actions that they probably knowingly caused.

"Thank you." I smiled at the man who had enlightened me. There was no need for Aura anymore in my mind.

_'All you need is training, and then you will be good...'_ I decided. If Aura attracted Grimm, then it would be better to deal with everyone without it. After all, I was better than those who selfishly used Aura; even if my pride was talking more than my reasoning.

As a gesture of my gratitude for the information, I bought several books from the man. Taking my time to remember that my little sisters would probably want a fairytale to listen to when they came over, I asked the man, "What would you recommend for children?"

The complete turnaround seemed to stun the man, and he burst into a small bout of chuckles. "Sorry," he apologized after he calmed down. "Just wasn't expecting that. You know, coming in asking for Aura _then _going straight to fairytales. But, I would say that the Legend of the Four Maidens; kids seem to love that for some reason."

"Thanks, that really helps." I smiled once again, finding the book not long after. Returning to the counter and pulling an appropriate amount of lien out, I frowned as I realized something. "I'm sorry, but I don't think I got your name."

The shopkeeper laughed and pointed in the direction of the doorway, "Don't know if you missed it or something, but it's on the sign. Name's Tuskon." He raised a hand.

I took it, still smiling. "I'll swing by again for some more books." Jabbing a thumb to my chest, I announced, "Your new number one customer, Jaune Arc, shall not let you down!"

Tuskon snorted, "Yeah, sure. You'd be hard pressed to match my real number one customer." The door jingled behind me, and I found a small smirk on the older man's face. "In fact, that's her."

Glancing over my shoulder, I didn't know who I was expecting, but a girl who shut down all higher thought processes was certainly not them. Long, black hair that ended in curly trusses a little below her shoulder blades. Her face was something sculpted out of a movie, and her eyes were bright, mesmerizing amber.

A vest of midnight clung to her body with twin coattails trailing to her lower thighs. One desperately-hanging, silver button was fastened over her stomach in a way that exposed both her white crop top and firm belly. Something that did _little _to hide the curves of her body. In fact, I would have sworn that they served to accentuate those curves in all the right places.

I had to catch myself before my eyes trailed to her white shorts and black stockings that faded to deep purple around her ankles. The clacking of heels meeting the floor clued me in on her shoes anyways.

Then I felt the warmth coming from her. The Aura she radiated _tasted _like it was on another level compared to the twins from before, and I couldn't help but reach out and link with it.

_[Vector-dependent time-variable projections. Intent-based attention manipulation.] _

I frowned slowly as I understand her abilities. One of them being a passive one that kept attention away from wherever she was most conscious about, and it currently was making my eyes seem to glaze over the large, black bow on top of her head.

If I hadn't had the senses to feel the power in effect, then I probably wouldn't have even found anything wrong with that bow. _Then _it twitched, and everything made sense.

I stifled a response to call her a Faunus as she was definitely hiding what I assumed her animal ears underneath that accessory. Instead, I continued to pretend to be dazed by her beauty. Which, while not true, was pretty darn close.

"Don't drool now, Jaune." Tuskon's voice cropped me out of my act.

I turned to him, sputtering in what I hoped looked like panic. "I'm not!" I announced.

"Right, right," the man smiled like a cat before its prey. "Anyways, meet Blake." He waved to the undercover Faunus whose face betrayed no emotions. "Blake, this is Jaune, my new 'number one' customer." Tuskon finished with air quotes.

"Uh, hey…" I waved to the girl after that rather painful introduction.

"Hey." Blake's eyes glanced over me, amber orbs falling onto the scar next to my eye. However, if she had a reaction to it, then it was probably the most well kept secret.

Then there was awkward silence.

Tuskon seemed to catch onto the awkward moment easily, reaching under his desk for something. He pulled out multiple books, and I had to blink as Blake basically blurred to grab them before I could even read the titles. Tuskon smiled as Blake glared at him, then me and then back to him. It was a sort of twitchy response that told me that she definitely knew my eyes were on her; something that reminded me oddly of Neo.

"I, uh, I guess I'll go…" I stated evenly as I watched the whole scene play out.

Tuskon gave me a wry smile and a shrug, "Seeya around, Jaune."

"Yeah, you too." I said on reflex while sparing what I hoped was a smile to Blake. "It was nice meeting you, Blake."

The girl in question just took a second to look up from her book to nod once. "You too." Then she returned back to the book that was opened up before her.

I escaped the awkward situation with all the haste that I couldn't have.

-x-

Walking along the pristine concrete sidewalks was a pastime that I didn't appreciate till I realized just how dangerous my life choices were. From the surprising amount of high rises to the looming buildings in the distance, the city of Vale was definitely an acquired taste. However, the huge tower that could be viewed from anywhere within the city was something out of fantasy.

Beacon tower was a symbol of hope and prosperity alike. It was one of the four prestigious academies where the aspiring heroes known as Huntsmen or Huntresses were taught, and it stood as a stalwart sentinel in the hearts of everyone in Vale. I always wanted to be a Huntsman and protect the good people of the world from dangerous Grimm.

However, my past spars with my sisters told me that I would never have the training to match them in a fair fight, but, now that I knew of Aura, I realized that they were using it to always beat me. Even my parents never told me about Aura; keeping me in the dark about one of the most important tools for being a Huntsman. Something about that grated me as well as stuck out to my cautious mind.

There _had _to be a reason for not telling me. They were my parents and sisters and I loved them, so I had to believe they had a reason for not telling me about Aura. And, now that I know of it, I'm even less inclined to actually get it.

The energy is one of the causes for Grimm attacks, and, whether or not it helps, I'd rather try and stick to my own abilities before using it. The less Aura users in the city the less Grimm it'll attract. Besides, I would only be a hypocrite if I selfishly used Aura against those selfishly using Aura.

Aura was made for _heroes_. For Huntsmen and women. Both of which I was not; not yet at least.

_'I sure hope I'm making the right decision…'_ I mused to myself as I made a turn around one of the larger buildings. _'No, whether you have Aura or not, you're still powerful in your own right._ You'll_ just have to get more skillful… And maybe buy some more Dust.' _

So to make up for my shortcomings in the form of Aura, I needed to become much stronger in the ways of techniques. I also needed to get a gym membership, and start training as my last couple of fights really took the breath from me.

As such, I called the only person in the department of making me stronger body wise, his Semblance basically giving me the chance to train by just walking around.

Two rings were all I needed before they picked up.

"Jaune?" Yatsuhashi asked from the other side.

"Ah, hey, Yatsuhashi," I stumbled to find my words. While his ability definitely helped immensely in training, my mind was really only wondering how normal people called their friends, and if the big guy even considered me a friend despite our short time knowing each other. "How was initiation?" I asked in a rapid bid to end the silence I drifted to.

"It was good."

There was more silence. "Uh, great! Awesome even… uh, I'm sorry I'm not used to this." My head hung low on my side as I felt it unfair. Talking down to villains and criminals, easy. Talking to someone who is a maybe-friend, not so much.

"It is fine, Jaune." There was someone talking on the other end as Yatsuhashi spoke again, "Huh? Yes, his name is Jaune… I met him a couple days after I made it to Vale… Really?"

"I'm sorry?" I queried back.

"Oh, sorry Jaune. One of my teammates said they met you quite recently, and was curious if you were the same person. Do you happen to remember someone named Velvet?"

A brown haired Faunus came to mind, fluffy bunny ears bouncing in my head. "Y, yeah, I remember her." Internally, I made a note to treat the nervous and stuttering Faunus with more respect next time. Anyone who can pass into Beacon is strong in their own right.

"Great, I'm going into town in a day or two to pick up a whetstone for my weapon. If you want, you can tag along with us." Yatsuhashi offered, and I could practically hear him smile a calming grin through the phone.

His calming mood was infectious as I smiled back. "Yeah, that sounds awesome. I can even ask you how initiation was."

"Hmmm, maybe not," Yatsuhashi paused. "After all, you need to take the test for yourself. Besides, I heard they change it regularly."

"Oh, that makes sense… I guess."

"Don't feel too bad, Jaune, though I hope you don't mind if the rest of my team comes along."

I shifted on my feet at the mention of more people. While I was getting more experience with dealing with people, I don't think blowing places up and punching their face in was very conducive at forming great relationships.

_'Imagine: Jaune Arc, the terrifying Vigilante! Strengths: fighting and explosives. Weaknesses: Social interaction.'_ I stifled a small laugh, finally replying to my friend. "Yeah, my mom used to say that 'friends are strangers that I haven't met yet' after all."

"A good saying." Yatsuhashi agreed. "I'll send to the details later."

"Right, seeya later, Yatsuhashi."

"Bye, Jaune."

The line clicked with a close, and I found myself standing in front of Rouge's Weapons. The place didn't really look all that impressive now that I looked at it. Tinted windows that displayed cartoonish approximations of actual weapons, and a small awning was all that adorned the outer parts of the store. It was like the owner didn't particularly care for customers.

Putting that out of mind, I strode through the doors. The unassuming man named Will looked up at me, eyes falling to my scar and smiled. Something about that smile unsettled me a little bit, but I was already in this too far to back out now.

"Took you long enough." He smirked as he opened a door behind the counter. "What can I do for you, Jaune?"

I looked at the unassuming man for a couple seconds, wondering why his smirk looked so weird. "Can I use your gun range?"

"Of course, did you bring your gun at least?"

I nodded, pulling Mercy from behind my back. The bulky thing had been trapped between my belt in my pants for the entire day, and was just beginning to get uncomfortable. However, I would gladly take being uncomfortable to being unprepared any day.

Frowning as I made my way to the back room, I noticed that mister Rouge was following me. He seemed to be looking for something. "Uh, sorry about not paying. How much?"

"Huh, oh yeah, how about you just buy the bullets you use." He said hurriedly, eyes glancing over my form again. "By the way, Jaune, what happened there."

Following his finger to my face, I absently traced my scar. Visions of pain and blood briefly scratched my mind before I sent the shop owner a patented Arc smile. "Nothing, just messed up a little when handling that sword you gave me."

"How unfortunate... say Jaune, how would you like to train under me? You obviously don't want to get in anymore... _accidents _now, right?"

_'He knows something...' _My face was passive as I thought over his words. There didn't seem to be any sign of trickery or something of the sort, but the only question why did he suddenly want to train me?

There was nothing that stood out to me when we first met besides me copying his power. However, was that all it took for him to have an interest in getting to know me. For all intents and purposes, he was a shopkeeper with an absurd ability.

We were now standing in the back of his shop, facing the range that served as the place where I first used mercy. I was beginning to feel apprehensive as Roman's warnings were ringing in my head. In an instant, I felt chilled by the thought that this man who had gifted me Vengeance was someone from one of the gangs.

_'Is he part of the Union? I remember reading about the areas they are most prevalent, but can you take him?'_ My mind whirred with the possibilities of combat, and I think Rouge's power was telling him something as he hurriedly pulled up his hands in a gesture for surrender.

"Calm down there, Jaune." He said placatingly. "I mean you no harm... really. If anything, I'm just a little worried that you were being hurt by some of the more unsavory people that are here. I probably should have worded my proposition better, but you don't seem like the type to accept my help so easily."

"I'm fine, but thank you for the concern."

"Really?" Will Rouge smirked, leaning on a nearby wall with his arms crossed. "Because you're probably one of the worst liars I've seen yet."

I felt heat rise to my face as his words resonated with a couple memories from back home. "I'm not!"

"Right, right, how about this then," The man said, smiling as if I was a rat caught in his trap. "Let's have a small fight -a test, if you will. You so much a land a hit on me, and I'll believe you can handle yourself as well as throw in a couple more boxes of ammo for your gun. Hell, I'll give you a discount on all high-caliber Dust rounds so long as I live and breathe."

I admit, as much as my trust to the guy had waned in the past couple seconds, I was certainly was tempted by his offer. Dust rounds were something that packed a sort of elemental punch to anything you desired to be shot at, and I was always up for something that would help my fighting abilities.

However, I halted my giddiness with calm calculation as I caught his words. All those boons were only _if _I won. And, while I was confident in my abilities, Will Rouge probably had Aura and his power to supplement him.

"And the catch is?" I asked carefully.

"That you'll train under me for the foreseeable future, and keep coming back to my store for repeated business."

I paused, unsure. "Why are you so intent on training me?"

"Well," If there was anything that I was expecting him to say, I wasn't expecting a reminiscing smile that seemed too sad to fake. "I've dealt with some idiots before, and I guess I've grown fond of training them. And something I learned was that sometimes to need to beat some sense into the very prideful ones."

"I don't know if I should be insulted or trying to punch you..." I admitted, ignoring the pang of annoyance at being called an idiot. Sure, some of my decisions have been... _odd_, but everything had turned out fine in the end.

However, mister Rouge didn't look to perturbed by me threatening him. In fact, the man just grinned challengingly. "So are you accepting?"

_[Weapon based omniscience. Intent-oriented short-term precognition.]_

The link solidified in my mind faster than he could complete his sentence. As knowledge flew into my head, I briefly knew that I had been baited into a fight. I knew that he was calling me an idiot to try and rile me up, and that those benefits for winning would be very tantalizing for my career in fighting crime.

So, when I nodded in acceptance, I was confident in my fight against him. After all, I knew exactly what his powers did, and there was little chance that he could figure out that I was using his own powers against him before I at least got the winning condition of a single touch. Maybe it was the previous wins getting to me, or it was the actions of Roman trying to get me to join him out of fear for what I could do, but a small smirk splayed over my lips.

We lined up in the more spacious parts of the range, staring down at each other with our assured victory. The first to move was my pilfered precognition, showing Will calmly stepping forwards.

I frowned at the action, and carefully watched him in the future and now. There was the slight possibility that he knew how to get around the precognition he thought I had, and there was also the chance that he already figured me out.

My breathing became slow as I was afraid of any distraction to miss the slowly approaching man. That was until he moved in the future, running forwards with a speed that blurred in a path straight towards me.

I saw him move, every tensing of his muscles to every calm and even breath. There was little I couldn't miss when I was practically given the same image in the futures I could see. However, that meant that when it all went south, I couldn't even _see _it coming.

Will Rouge was already too close for me to even react by the time he finally chose to move. I had underestimated just how fast he could accelerate, and I had also grown complacent about the fact that I had taken down several Aura users.

Mister Rouge's ability worked along the lines of reaction speed, so when something comes along that can make all the seconds you see negligible in the face of their own speed you can only watch as they beat you. And I never knew just how aggravating it was to watch as a punch smashed into my head before I could even see it physically. Darkness hit me like a truck before I could even notice that I had lost.

When I finally came to, I found a deeply seated anger directed towards myself.

"Welcome back, kid." Mister Rouge smiled overhead. My head was suffering from a pounding headache, though. "I'll see you in the mornings."

I don't think I moved for a good couple of minutes as I mulled over what had happened. There were too many things that swam back and forth in the sea of my thoughts for me to actually pin down one, but I knew one thing for sure.

Jaune Arc honored his promises; even if he wanted to punch the man more than anything.

-x-

_A little bit of Jaune's mental image of himself coming in. He's prideful, and even in the original he refused Pyrrha's help originally because he wanted to prove himself. However, at the same time he's pessimistic, and his time at home probably didn't help. A time that shall be expounded upon soon. _

_As for Aura, he doesn't need it quite yet. Mainly because he'll be somewhat fine without it, and I don't wanna give him it unless he absolutely needs it. Again, I have a scene for it, so the slightly contrived nature of his reasoning is intentional. _

_As for the names of his weapons, honestly, it was more of a spur of the moment type of thing. My reasoning was that he used his sword more than his gun, so Vengeance more than Mercy. Almost exactly what happened to the Club. _

_As always, Enjoy!_


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer:** I do not own RWBY or any of its franchise.

A helpful guide incase you get confused:  
"Dialogue."  
_'Thoughts.'  
[Powers? They're powers, right?]_

-x-

Chapter 9 - Friends are Great But Enemies are Better

"You're blocking too soon, kid." Mister Rouge stated as his wooden sword snuck past my stalwart guard and smacked painfully into my side.

I wheezed as air was forced from my lungs. The powerful blow made me stagger backwards on the sweat-ridden mats below, feet stammering in hopes to stop me before I fell down. One of my hands came up to my left side, and prodded the area where the weapon struck me before I hissed as a sharp pain sparked in my ribs. That was definitely leaving a nasty bruise.

"Hey, hey, no losing focus either!" My opponent warned, and it was only the sound of something whistling through the air that allowed me to dodge the blow. A sound that I was getting better and better at watching out for.

My body curled into a roll, not even needing to see the attack, as I hit the mat with an audible thud before diving out of the way of the overhead attack. The wooden weapon hit the mat the next second, proving that my instincts were correct.

Heart beating through my chest, I spun as I stood. My face whirled to find Mister Rouge staring down at me with his dark, brown eyes, and smiled widely before his sword smacked into the same spot as before.

I growled between the pain, trapping his weapon on my side before swinging at him with my other arm. In the decisive moment, he let go of his weapon, ducked under my own swing, his hairs barely scraping against the hard wood of my sword. As he ducked, he swiftly flipped his hips before he tightened his opposite hand on his practice sword then pushed it deeper into my side in the same movement.

Pain throbbed through the growing bruise, and my vision swam a little as my nerves screamed in protest. Harsh breaths passed through my lungs as all my muscles tensed, stopping myself from being thrown to the floor from the blunted sword grinding further into my side.

Idly, I saw Mister Rouge's eyes widen as his attack was stopped again, and could barely raise a free arm to block my wooden training weapon from smashing his head in. A meaty smack cracked on his forearm as the fake sword collided with his unprotected arm.

However, should there have been any pain in the action, he never showed any reaction before his arm twisted around the weapon, trapping it in his armpit in a familiar maneuver. However, the similarities ended as his muscles tensed all in the effort to forcibly drag me off the ground.

I was weightless for a second, feeling light as a feather. Then wind rushed past my ears as my opponent slammed me into the mats with enough force to break something. If it wasn't for the softer cushions on the floor, then I would be rolling around on the floor with broken rib.

Still, the force of the blow was hard enough as air rushed out of my lungs in a fit of violent coughs as I rolled out of the way of a follow up attack while I was on the ground. I knew he _always _sent one of those whenever I wasn't in the best conditions, and the hard thump that echoed next to me proved my assumptions correct.

Jumping to my feet, I tried to control my heavy breathing as well as wipe the sweat sticking to my brow. My opponent grinned as our weapons clashed in dull cracks that threatened to break our wooden constructs. Splinters showered out from each collision.

I was half tempted to link to what I now knew was Aura that was radiating off of Mister Rouge. However, gaining the ability to see into the future would defeat the purpose of this training exercise when I didn't have that obvious cheat power.

As such, every agonizing twist, parry, block and attack that I received, gave and stopped was all part of the process. Our weapons would lock for an instant before he would push off and slam the sword into one of the openings that I had, and then I would retaliate.

My teeth gnashed inside my mouth as my eyes narrowed into near slits. Muscles tensed with the sole purpose of burying my sword into him, and I felt some cold fury settle into my stomach as the bruises all over my form throbbed. In my head, I was now truly trying to hit my teacher without caring for any consequence.

Emphasis on try, though. My trainer was something akin to a master in the ways of every single weapon that he laid his hands on, and, while I liked to think it was due to his power helping, I had experienced just how his power worked. And because of that I knew first hand that his abilities were all pure skill. All his powers did was give him knowledge about whatever weapon he looked at, but that lent nothing in terms of skill for the desired weapon.

A skill that I was slowly but surely climbing up to. Well, I was trying at least until he suddenly sped up. He seemed to blur for a second as I lost all track that I had of him, and my trained vision could only catch his shadow before the impact crashed into my stomach. The tip of his sword forced all the air from my lungs as if a steel pole had just been jammed into my diaphragm. I felt tears settle into my eyes while trying to make sense of that just happened.

Whether it was by sheer reflex of the man or some sadistic pleasure he had for letting me know that taking a moment to rest was not welcomed in our fight, I never saw the finishing blow. I was trying once again to get my coughs under order when he smashed an elbow into my chin, forcing my head to the ceiling, and then backhanded me across the face in what was a mind-splitting smack.

Stars gathered in my eyes as darkness began to creep around the corners of my vision. Everything was swimming in slow motion for a second as I felt _oh so_ very light on my feet.

"Whoops, sorry about that, kid." The blurry approximation of what looked to be a humanoid fish said. Huh, when did mister Rouge turn into a fish? "I think I put too much strength into that last attack. Let's uh, call it a day alright?"

"Righty-oh!" I saluted as the fish disappeared into a herd of butterflies. The butterflies wrapped a strong hand around my wrist and sat me down.

"Yep, that's definitely _not _going to be good…" The butterflies vibrated in annoyance, and I wanted to tell them that they are okay. However, my tongue felt like a solid brick in my mouth, so all I could do was burble in what I hoped sounded like pleasantries.

"Right… stop talking, kid." I reached for the butterflies that came together into a person, and slowly I felt something click behind the haze that my mind had settled into.

"Wha…" I slurred, finally feeling something of clarity come over me. "What happened?"

"Yeah, that's my bad, kid." I focused on mister Rouge whose body was still a tad blurry. I had to squint my eyes hard to even pick out certain details of the man. "I keep forgetting that we're not fighting with Aura. By the way, you should get to using that; you might have a concussion."

"Of course," My head thumped painfully behind my eyes. Things were coming in and out of focus faster and faster. "I'll get right on it when I get home."

"Right… say, kid, I know you're getting stronger everyday, but usually I have to drag my students to get beaten black and blue. You were so against my help at first, so you wanna tell me what happened... other than realizing that I am the greatest, of course."

I frowned, tracing the scar on my face as pain, fire, and noise blasted in my head. The feeling of being outclassed in almost every way was demoralizing on all accounts, and I liked to think that I was getting closer to beating Mister Rouge to a pulp after every session.

However, I didn't want to answer the older man. He may have forced me to take these so called training sessions that helped me more than I liked to admit, but telling him that I was only getting beaten numb because I wanted to fight criminals probably wouldn't fly well with him. In the end, I just settled for accepting the lessons that I hadn't been given back home.

"How much for today? Unless you're going to be giving me freebies now." Though, I think the first time he asked for money after beating me up was rather aggravating despite knowing that he was running a business.

"Ah, maybe ten for today… I did knock you senseless for a bit until you started to get desperate." He rubbed his chin, angling his eyes at me like I was some kind of animal. He always seemed to do that when I was looking -like he wanted to see how I react to it, and with his power, I felt like he could. "You know, you fight much better when you try not to stick to any kind of… well, when you stop caring for your opponent."

I blinked, confused. "Uh, I'm sorry?"

"No, that's good!" The weapon master laughed. "It means that you're not all that worthless with fighting! I was a little worried when we started when you didn't seem to be taking any of my lessons to heart. You don't want to know how annoyed I was when you didn't really know how to properly block!"

"Thanks?" I asked, moving to my stuff in the corner of the square training room and taking the required lien out.

"And you're welcome, kid!" He exclaimed, taking the lien I handed.

Seeing that he wasn't really making an effort to help me out, I took that as my silent cue to leave. Having already gone through several different training sessions with the man I knew that he didn't really have anything to say after we were done, and that he always made sure to give me bruises that I would feel as I walked home. He also never asked for anything more than ten lien.

Wincing as a particularly painful part of my skin tingled whenever I moved, I turned back to my tentative trainer. "Hey, uh, you know, I can pay more if you want. I mean, do you even have any other students besides me?"

"Don't worry, kid." He smiled, some joke passing through him as he laughed. "I still have my job that gets me enough lien to pass the time. Unless you _want _to pay more to get beating to a pulp everyday?"

I stared at him, giving the best impression of annoyance with how tired I was. "No thanks."

"Yeah, yeah, now get outta here, kid. I got a business to run."

Leaving as he shooed me away with his hand, I shambled my way back home. Luckily, the entire trip only took about a couple minutes before I nearly broke open my door to charge into my bathroom.

Whatever magic Roman had done to fix everything naturally included upgrading my bathroom for some reason. However, I wasn't complaining as the place was the only room I was spending more than a couple hours in nowadays. With getting up early for work, going to get beat up in the name of training in the afternoon and recently gathering information in the dead of night, I was finding myself in the room more often than my bed.

_[Liquid contact-based accelerated healing. Minor micro-hydrokinesis.]_

I felt the link settle over me and the information wash over me like the water that flowed over my body. The various injuries that I had been accumulating were all itching slightly, and my groaning ribs had stopped making creaking sounds after the first week of this treatment. My aching body slowly knitted back together as my pilfered power got to work with helping me.

_'One day you need to send a gift basket to whoever it is with this power.'_ I thought to myself as I used the power which I always took joy in using.

Sighing as I leaned back and relaxed for once in my crazy schedule, I smiled.

I was meeting some friends today.

-x-

The landing zones for the Bullheads to and from Beacon's academy grounds was as grand as Vale could make it. Welcoming vistas and stores bordered the areas around it, and the area where Bullheads roared down from the sky on their massive Dust-combustion engines was made such that everyone would be able to glance at the heroes coming down from the clouds.

However, I was now starting to feel that there was _too _much money dedicated to saying that Huntsmen and women were the heroes. Though, that mainly has to do with the fact that I was now seeing the darker parts of Vale, and was becoming a tad too pessimistic.

Still, my misgivings aside, that didn't mean I didn't appreciate the beauty of some of their additions. Where in the afternoon, the place was alight with bulbs of various colors that danced hypnotically in the shade of the setting sun. It was a sort of beauty that cheered me past the previous beating of earlier today as most of the students of Beacon were either coming out to join the nightlife of Vale or heading back for the day.

Sitting on a nearby bench near one of the multitude of exits of the landing area, I tapped on my Scroll as I waited for people who I wanted to be friends with. My legs jittered uncontrollably as I felt some unknown soreness well up from them.

"Why are you like this, Jaune?" I whispered to myself, bringing my sweat palms to the sides of my jeans to dry them. "They're just normal people… Yeah, _normal _in every way that includes fighting masses of malevolent monsters as a daily thing!"

While trying to distract myself from the growing social anxiety, I began to search up things related to Rouge's Weapons. I respected the man a great deal for training me, but that didn't change the small things that I noticed about him. From having seemingly no business at certain times of day to suddenly becoming missing in the middle of the night when I knew he had a lived-in loft up above his shop.

There was also the issue of his previous students that he kept referencing. I had found no pictures or mention of his ever having these students who he seemed to taken with, and I was beginning to notice a theme of him putting the matter off as soon as I questioned him about them.

Of course, I wasn't trying to dig up any dark secrets of the kind man. If anything I was just searching up why someone with such a powerful ability was still unknown. And maybe that fact that I was worried his business might go under with all his questionable sales.

I mean, he sold me Vengeance for such a low price and is even training me for almost a tenth of what some Huntsman-in-Training courses offer at their lowest. He was too kind of a man, I'm sure.

"Jaune!" My eyes traced up to the large man-looking teenager plodding towards me, forgetting about my worries for the older man as new ones filtered through my head. Instantly, noticed the Auras that settled in an even pace around him. One of them I knew _very _intimately, and the other was just a passing resemblance that I glossed over once before.

I saw the brown-haired Faunus first, bunny ears flopping in some unknown wind. She was wearing some kind of sundress that matched well with the warmer weather of the year. However, my eyes landed on someone who I hadn't expected to see again. A girl in a pair of skintight jeans that matched perfectly with her top and jacket. I knew for a fact that only an increased cosmetic affinity would be able to put those together. All I remembered from that interaction was big guns and trying not to bleed out.

"Hey, Yatsuhashi!" I waved, trying to force a smile as the Faunus, Velvet smiled at me and waved too.

Clacking of heels on paved road and a disapproving glare was all I received from the girl with a orange highlight. She wasn't carrying her huge pistol anymore, but with her power I wasn't too sure she wasn't hiding something somewhere.

Out of habit I linked to her Aura just in case.

_[Variable distraction based focal points. Increased cosmetic affinity.]_

_'Oh good.'_ I breathed in relief as I only felt her power warding my eyes off her handbag. _'It's just a purse… wait.' _

Narrowing my eyes in suspicion, I tried to find some inconsistency or noticeable bulge that signified a weapon. It was only with the literal days of tailing many persons of interest that I discovered that there were some inconsistent seams along her bag's edges. Something was wrong with it, and my instincts were screaming at me to not try and find out.

"Hey… Jaune." Velvet stammered with her introduction, curling a bit on herself as the rude girl stood a little closer to the Faunus. Her eyes were now boring into me as if daring me to insult the brown-haired bundle of nerves.

As such, I put on the best of my smiles and nodded to the shy Faunus. I liked to think it wasn't the aggression being directed at me, but I was much more comfortable than before. "It's nice to see you again Velvet. I honestly didn't expect to see you again so soon."

While introducing myself I decided to check out the powers of Yatsuhashi's teammates with a little bit of curiosity. I hadn't linked up with Velvet's when I had first seen her due to the odd situation that we met, but now I was very intrigued what sort of power she was packing to get into Beacon. Sure, skill and Aura probably did quite a bit of the work. However, powers brought so many things to a fight.

_[Limited movement mimicry. Partial photographic memory.] _

_[Static-range ultrasonic echolocation. Minor sound manipulation.] _

Holding in the need to gape at the absurd power of Velvet, and all the information that it was feeding me, I focused instead on the dark skinned teen with rustic hair who walked in Yatsuhashi's shadow. I hadn't even noticed him despite the teen's bigger figure, and had more distinctive scars than some of the gangsters that I tailed at night. He seemed to be very open to his scars since his orange jacket did little to cover his arms. The dark pants were a nice touch, too.

"Hello, name's Fox. Yatsuhashi said you're very dependable." Fox held out his hand, and I could see into the pure white eyes. It was like he didn't have anything but sclera. The small scar on his lip curled with his smile. "I'm not blind, by the way."

"Oh, I knew that!" I took his hand, feeling the heavy calluses that were prevalent on his hands. Hell, they felt like rocks! "I mean, I didn't think you were blind. You look so, uh… observant?"

_'Smooth Jaune, let's also reveal that you can copy powers, and that his is observation based.' _I said in my head, trying not to pay attention to the fact that everyone in a small radius around me was now highlighted in ultrasonic waves. Everyone walking around disturbed quite a bit of the odd bluish black vision that seemed to overlap with my own, and I had to release the link before I started to focus on everything around me instead of Yatsuhashi's friends.

"Yeah, anyways, you… what did you say your name was again?" The rude girl finally asked, her eyes narrowing over her sunglasses.

"Ah, Jaune," I answered happily drinking in her dislike of me. There was a thing to be said about feeling comfortable so long as someone is antagonistic towards you. "That's my name, I mean. We met before, you know."

"You did?" Yatsuhashi asked. I almost forgot about him as he became silent as soon as everyone else was talking. He turned to his teammate. "You never mentioned meeting him, Coco." The large teen was frowning now. "Did something happen between you two?"

Coco was good at hiding the grimace that came over her face as she remembered our interaction. Specifically the parts where she was assuming that I was with my significant other causing a rather loud… _Disturbance_…

"No, it was such a short meeting I barely remember it." Coco said, putting a sugary smile on her face. Her power was drawing eyes away from the twitching corners of it making it seem like her lips were perfectly stable and calm. "It's nice to finally meet you Jaune. Velvet has talked about someone who helped her out; someone who didn't seem to care that she was a Faunus, and was capable of sweeping her-"

Velvet slapped her hands over Coco's mouth, a blush spreading through her face. I could practically feel the warmth radiating off her red cheeks. "Coco!" Velvet accused as her features returned to their natural colors.

"Um…" My mind was trying to understand what was going on, and instead, I turned to the other two who had been silent watching. Fox was grinning while Yatsuhashi's face was a mix of worry and amusement. "What's going on?"

"Probably nothing we need to worry about." Yatsuhashi supplied, sparking a small laugh from Fox.

I stared at the white-eyed teen, and he waved me off. "An inside joke, man; you don't need to worry about it. Though, I might tell you later."

"Right… Um, so a whetstone, right Yatsuhashi?" I asked, tearing my eyes off of the fact that Velvet and Coco were now having a conversation with their eyes. They must've been pretty close for that to work since it took me a couple years of knowing my sisters before that even happened.

"Indeed, thank you for offering to help me find one, too. Do you know where one is at?"

A light bulb lit up in my head as I thought of a great idea to fix many problems at once. Mister Rouge never said anything was wrong with me coming in the afternoon, and he'd probably thank me for bringing the extra business. "Yeah, I know a place. I go there pretty often, in fact."

"Do they have something for larger swords?" Yatsuhashi asked, as they followed me through the streets. Fox was falling next to Yatsuhashi, but was also talking to Coco and Velvet about something.

"I think they do," I frowned remembering all the times I had been in there. Vengeance hadn't needed sharpening yet, but that didn't mean that I forgot to buy the tools to take care of it. "I mean, my own sword is rather large, too, but how big is yours?"

"I would say it's pretty large. I don't think that I have seen any one larger than mine since I arrived in Vale."

Behind us, Coco snickered and Fox gave a sort of staggered cough. Velvet continued to heat up and grow a rather interesting shade of red. I was too busy imagining how large of a sword Yatsuhashi had to even understand what they were thinking of, and, with the applications of his tactile gravitational manipulation, I imagined something that was at least a couple times my own sword's weight.

Luckily, I didn't have to think too hard over the fact that I couldn't quite picture how large of a weapon we were talking about as we had reached Rouge's Weapons a little while after we started our trek. It was situated in a rather backwards alleyway now that I had a good look at it, but it was surprisingly close to a great many places. Mister Rouge must have gotten it for a steal due to the awkward area that it was placed in.

"Here we are." I announced, marching down the alley and pulled open the door for everyone.

"This place is… _interesting_, I guess." Coco warily looked around the alleyway that led up to the store. She gazed at the odd decorations that covered the tinted windows, and frowned a little after judging some of them. "Are you sure they even sell weapons?"

"Of course, I bought my sword here."

"Come on, Coco. Jaune's taking the time out of his day to help Yatsuhashi; you don't need to try and find any fault with him for everything." Fox said, nodding as he stepped into the store.

"Ah, thank you…" Velvet whispered as she walked through the door, but paused as she looked up at my face for a second longer than when we had met up. I knew her brown eyes had found the scar on my face, and I smiled while turning my head so that the line was hidden from her view. The Faunus silently clicked her teeth together, biting down on all the things she couldn't say.

Yatsuhashi didn't say anything as he nodded in silent thanks while dipping his head to make it through the doorway without bashing it on the frame. I happily followed him through, and immediately halted all thoughts as I found someone at the counter that was most certainly not Will Rouge.

No one seemed to care, though. Unlike me, they hadn't spent many hours just coming and going from his store without seeing this character. And I was particularly not inclined to believe that this guy had anything to do with the unassuming mister Rouge.

A fringe of longer, dark green hair was shaved down to the scalp on one side and let fall all the way to his shoulder on the other. Piercings littered the man's face with most of them taking up his eyebrows and lips. A pair of acidic green eyes burned over the pieces of hair that settled over his vision.

He didn't look too big, so I knew he couldn't have overpowered mister Rouge and stolen his store. However, from the amount of leather and heavy chains he wore on his outfit, I would be pressed to think he fit in anywhere where there wasn't a large amount of rock music. A file grinded back and forth against his sharpened fingernails that I was sure were not because of any Faunus heritage.

And his burning gaze found me staring at him. "What the hell're you lookin' at?" The man spat.

"Nothing, um…" I paused remembering to scan for Aura, and easily found his instead of mister Rouge's as being the only other Aura user inside besides us. Without a second thought, I immediately pulled on his power as I felt my worries for my trainer writhe in the back of my head.

_[Aura to acidic liquid conversion. Contact-induced liquid-based forced neutrality conversion.]_

"If you got somethin' to say, say it." The acid converter sneered caustically. His face was twisting through a series of emotions that I couldn't quite describe, but one of them was definitely annoyance.

"No, um…" I was sputtering now. This guy was dangerous, and his power was nothing short of deadly, and luckily his little acid conversion was limited to his own Aura or else I would definitely suspect him of murder. I still am, however, I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt at this point. "Where's mister Rouge?"

If anything, me mentioning the actual owner seemed to set something off in the man as he sat up straighter, and eyes me with something along the lines of angry calculation. "Why the hell're you lookin' for Will?"

"I mean, I do train with him…" I answered a little unsure now. This guy referred to mister Rouge by his first name, so that had to mean something. Was this perhaps one of his previous students? It would probably explain why mister Rouge never told me about him if he was so toxic.

"You've _got _to be shittin' me…" The man cursed, pulling out his Scroll before turning to us with a frown. I could tell he was now looking at me with something besides rage and annoyance now, but I didn't really feel like begrudging acceptance fit in the man's image. "Take whatever the hell you want."

Then he stormed into the back of the store throwing up a bunch of curses at someone named Melody. I kind of shared a startled silence with the others who had followed me. We felt like this was all some sort of joke, and kind of just waited for something to happen.

"I think…" Coco decided to break the quiet. "Uh, I mean, I know a place that's pretty close to here."

No one rejected her idea of getting out of there.

-x-

There were certain things in life that came naturally to people. Mine was apparently finding myself in rather uncomfortable places and seeing how far I could dig till the hole became a tunnel.

What I was trying to understand was why things just kind of happened around me. Like how mister Rouge was apparently not in his own place of work, and decided that giving the keys to someone I hoped was his student. Or how the excursion to get a whetstone ended up with all of us spending the night back at my place.

By the time we had found the place Coco had suggested, Yatsuhashi had suggested we find somewhere to eat, but that seemingly innocuous choice of words set off the flood gates that were arguments. Something that we all found was Coco's strong suit as she proceeded to tear into everyone but Velvet till we all wanted pasta.

Another thing we all learned with deadly prejudice was that Coco was only having the pasta that was on the other side of Vale. She forced us into the monorail, and we were then taken to one of the best pasta places that I hadn't even heard of where we all spent the afternoon talking the day away. I finally learned a little bit about how boring Beacon was besides the initiation they all went through, but for some reason, they were all much more tight lipped about that than I thought.

Of course, now that everyone was full and sated, the time where Bullheads flew back to Beacon's campus was long gone. As such, we all waddled into my apartment that now felt much smaller than usual with the addition of four new residents.

"Sorry, about this, Jaune. We could still buy a room in a hotel if you don't want to house us?" Yatsuhashi said.

"No, no, it's fine!" I waved my hands back and forth. "There's no problem with you guys stay here unless you all don't really like the cramped space."

"Well, it's more spacious than our dorm room. Ahh, I miss the space my own apartment had..." Coco commented from the kitchen, peering through the fridge with an interest that didn't seem plausible after all the food we had just eaten.

"Um, Coco… I don't think you should be looking through there…" Velvet murmured beside her friend.

"Nonsense! Jaune doesn't mind, right Jaune?!" Coco smiled happily at me, and I could only meekly nod. I think we were all regretting the fact that wine was provided free to any Huntswoman or Huntsman to be. Sure, the restaurant followed Mistral's age limit for alcohol, but that didn't mean it was okay to get drunk.

Fox placed a hand on my shoulder. "Sorry about her, man. I honestly didn't know she had such a weakness to alcohol."

We both watched as Coco pulled the resisting Faunus to get a better look at my apartment, and I was flinching as how the Faunus was being literally carried by her partner. Fox and I shared a laugh at how Velvet yelped after realizing that her feet no longer touched the floor.

"I don't think that's a _weakness_." I added, earning another laugh from the teen before a knock on my door startled us.

Looking back and forth between the door and my guests, I smiled awkwardly. I raised a hand and pointed to my newly rebuilt closet. "There are blankets and extra pillows in there, so you can all pick a place on the couch or take the bed for whatever. I'll get the door."

"Thank you again, Jaune." Yatsuhashi gave a small bow.

"No problem."

Making my way towards the door, I instantly felt the familiar warmth of Aura after a small check of paranoia, and I immediately pulled on the strongest powers near me.

_[Tactile gravitational manipulation. Biologically augmented internal gravity.]_

_[Single-target parasitic Aura theft. Activatable shared Aura.]_

Information filtered through my head as I connected to the Aura that was outside my door, and felt an unnatural strength suffuse through my body. I felt as light as a feather as I carefully pulled open my door to be greeted with long black hair and a face a smooth a white porcelain that matched with the white nightgown. Bright green eyes flinched as they came in contact with wine, and I barely had time to notice that they no longer were wearing a thick coat of makeup before my hand snapped up to their mouth.

Their initial response to my action was to thrash, but with my tactile gravitational manipulation, I pushed all their actions down into the ground. The criminal crumpled to the floor as they realized that their could barely move with the sheer force that was bearing down on them.

With me spending half of the day using his power, I felt like I knew the ins and outs of Yatsuhashi's power like the back of my hand. It was also the fact that I was connected for so long that I knew I could pull on the link with a little more force than I normally could.

Something tensed behind the link connected me and my mountain of a friend. The feeling of a rushing river flooded through the link thundered through my head. I was able to understand that I was straining Yatsuhashi's power to the limit as it wasn't supposed to be used for this sheer constant weight, and I was beginning to feel a sort of exhaustion that was slowly creeping through the link. Not enough to be noticeable to anyone but me, but enough to make me feel that my own abilities had a limit of sorts. A realization hit me as I found that somehow using the Aura of those I linked with.

I had always used the powers that I copied well within the confines of their own parameter, or remedied their weaknesses with powers that worked well with each other. Now that I felt this odd bond waver, I knew that I could only strain the link after spending a good amount of time linked with them, and that somehow I was using their power with such that they didn't even notice it. However, I had little time to test why it wasn't until I tried something that a power struggled immensely with to even begin to feel any strain on the link.

"Why are you _here_?" I whispered, sporting a glance over my shoulder just in case my new friends were watching. They were too busy watching Coco be drunk to really pay me any attention, so I careful shut the door before they noticed something.

The black haired girl's eyes narrowed at me as I pressed a hand on her shoulder and removed the one on her mouth. She tried to speak, but the weight pressing down on her was slowly making it harder for her to even breathe.

With a small bit of apprehension, I eased up on the force that I was holding over her, but continued to keep a hand on her shoulder.

"The hell, asshole?" She growled, coughing halfway between grateful gasps. I eyed her hard and tried not to feel bad when she visibly winced at my gaze. One of her hands came up to her stomach as I saw shivers begin to come over her. "What the hell do you want?"

I shook the guilt I was feeling as I told myself that this was the girl who almost took out my eye, and I breathed out once to calm my nerves. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to tell you to quiet the fu-"

"Mel, do you need help?" The girl's twin poked her head out of the door right next door with a fitting red nightgown, and her green eyes trembled as they found mine. Her hands began to shake as she clenched the door with white knuckles. "Please let my sister go…" She whispered, fragile.

I felt something inside me shake from the sheer _fear _that radiated off of her. Whether it was out of pity or guilt, I released my hand from the girl's sister. There was a tense silence that settled in the wake of my actions, and I don't think anybody knew where to go from there as no one moved a muscle.

"Sorry," I tried.

"Whatever," The girl in white said, moving with a slight limp to their door. "Just keep it down."

"...thank you." The girl in red meekly responded even as she never looked me in the eye after she saw who I was. They shut their apartment closed with shaky hands, and for some reason I felt sick to my stomach.

I had caused them to be like that. Somewhere inside me I wanted to complain that they were already criminals, and that they probably should have seen worse things than my assault on their business. However, I could do nothing about the fact that they were somehow traumatized from my actions.

Entering my own apartment, I was greeted with Yatsuhashi taking up the floor next to my couch while Fox settled into the couch. They waved at me, happily unaware of my frustrating turmoil.

"Someone you know?" Yatsuhashi asked.

Meekly I nodded, wondering when and why those two moved in next door. I was certain that they hadn't been there before me blowing up their place. "Yeah, we just… had a bad first impression of each other."

"Why don't you smooth it over then?" Fox grunted into the conversation.

"I mean," I stumbled over my words. "I don't think that would be good…"

"Well, I think you should at least try, Jaune. Whatever the case, it seems to be eating at you." Yatsuhashi reasoned, and I knew what he said was true. Their reactions were something that I never wanted to see even if they were criminals. I wanted to be a hero, and I was willing to inflict terror in my enemies, but they were wounded and traumatized because of me.

"I guess I'll think about it." I allowed before making my way to my room.

"Ah, wait Jaune." Fox stopped me. "Velvet and Coco took your room, so we got you an extra blanket."

"Oh," I blushed, looking at the closed door to my bedroom. "Thanks."

Taking a spot on the floor, I stared at the ceiling long after everyone had gone to sleep and only the soft sounds of breathing or hard snores kept me company. My thoughts centered around the twins next door, and how badly I hurt them both physically and mentally.

I was a hero who beat up criminals, but that didn't mean I couldn't help them when they were at their own low points as well.

I went to sleep, knowing that tomorrow would be complicated.

-x-

_I'm on vacation so my updates might be sporadic. However, this chapter is a little bit of a show of what is to come. The story of the twins is that they're not really traumatized like Jaune thinks, more shaken and afraid that he might be part of the Reds. (He did blow up the Club (then again, Yang did as well)). but not only that, he also made each twin practically watch as he brutalized the other. That sets an image. _

_Things are about to happen, and while I like heroes who are all good, I personally think they fall on more of a grey. Especially the way Jaune has been handling his problems, but things are already set in motion, and Jaune just can't see it yet. _

_If you have any problems with the story, you're free to ask. I enjoy both criticisms and praises alike. _

_As always, Enjoy!_


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